By
Gregory Nussen
Published 11 minutes ago
Gregory Nussen is the Lead Film Critic for Screen Rant. They have previously written for Deadline Hollywood, Slant Magazine, Backstage and Salon. Other bylines: In Review Online, Vague Visages, Bright Lights Film Journal, The Servant, The Harbour Journal, Boing Boing Knock-LA & IfNotNow's Medium. They were the recipient of the 2022 New York Film Critics Circle Graduate Prize in Criticism, and are a proud member of GALECA, the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics. They co-host the Great British Baking Podcast. Gregory also has a robust performance career: their most recent solo performance, QFWFQ, was nominated for five awards, winning Best Solo Theatre at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in 2025.
Sign in to your ScreenRant account
Summary
Generate a summary of this story
follow
Follow
followed
Followed
Like
Like
Thread
Log in
Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents:
Try something different:
Show me the facts
Explain it like I’m 5
Give me a lighthearted recap
In Happy Holidays, Scandar Copti's multi-generational patchwork portrait of a family in Haifa, love is complicated by conservative cultural traditions, arcane medical laws, and the irony of being a Christian Arab in a Jewish nationalist land. As in Copti's previous film Ajami, the Palestinian filmmaker has mostly employed non-professional actors and largely improvised dialogue, giving Happy Holidays a uniquely intimate insight into the heart of a singular existence.
Copti's subject is how the demands of the modern world often conflict with the simultaneous hope for cultural preservation. Four characters interconnect in a Pulp Fiction-like, chaptered format, each of whom has trouble balancing the myriad demands of family, love and a curious othering inside their own land. Shot by Tim Kuhn, Happy Holidays relies on a persistent hand-held, close-up approach, which allows us to feel beside its characters as they navigate these frequently muddy waters, helped along tremendously from extraordinarily vulnerable performances.
Happy Holidays Benefits from Beautiful Performances Which (Mostly) Paper Over Its Flaws
The film is emotionally heavy. It is also entirely too reliant on its structure to paper over the severe issues with pacing and repetition. Considering Copti's approach, the film needed more strict cutting. The shifting POV is never quite justified, if anything hampering our ability to see the overall, domino effect of racial, political, social and religious pressures on an entire group of people.
Rami, an Arab (Toufic Danial) is in love with Shirley (Shani Dahari), a Jew. Their relationship is introduced to us as one in crisis: Shirley is pregnant, and has decided to keep the baby. Rami doesn't handle this particularly well, and Shirley cuts him off almost immediately. Meanwhile, Rami's mother, Hanan (a thunderous Wafaa Anoun), struggles to hold down the family's reputation; her daughter, Fifi (Manar Shehab) is, by the conservative family's standards, promiscuous and recovering from a car accident, while her husband, Fouad (Imad Hourani) faces bankruptcy from insurance fraud.
Fifi, educated in Jerusalem, is a teaching assistant at a Jewish elementary school. The object of her affection is Dr. Walid (Raed Burbara), Rami's best friend, but in order to lock him down she has to bury a potentially shameful secret. And, as Shirley navigates the potential for single-mother parenthood, she also faces the implicit racial discrimination of Zionism. Miri (Merav Mamorsky), a nurse, refuses to help her, while privately confronting her daughter, Ori (Neomi Memorsky), who may be faking depression in order to evade state-mandated military service.
There's a metric ton of juicy sociological themes undergirding these dramatic family dynamics, and not all of them are communicated clearly through the spider-web of Copti's story structure. Between abortion, Zionism, capitalism, militarization, racism, Palestinian liberation and more, there's just too much to give full service to. Despite how well-performed it is, Happy Holidays does crumble under its own weight. On a scene-by-scene basis, it is strengthened by its documentary-like verisimilitude, but the whole picture doesn't coalesce.
There is no corner of these people's existence that hasn't been co-opted by trauma and the weaponization of the same to sell nationalistic ideals.
Nonetheless, when the film does work, it really hammers home the haptic feel of existing within a country as militarized as it is. There is no corner of these people's existence that hasn't been co-opted by trauma and the weaponization of the same to sell nationalistic ideals. Both the Israeli and Palestinian characters in the film have to battle decades' worth of political grandstanding, manufactured conflict and the bastardization of ancient holidays.
Though the film's title ironically points towards the global parlance of looping in fall and winter holidays, it mostly refers to the Jewish holiday of Purim, a costumed holiday which celebrates the triumph of good or evil, equity over discrimination. In modern-day Zionism, which has re-framed so many holidays to suit a patriotic narrative, certain racial and gendered stereotypes get reinforced in bad faith. For the complex characters in Scandar Copti's wrenching film, progress means unlearning those stories, accepting change, and, based on the film's startling final shot, bravely barreling past accepted norms towards an unforeseen future.
7/10
Happy Holidays
10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 stars 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star Like Follow Followed Drama Release Date July 3, 2025 Runtime 123 minutes Director Scandar Copti Producers Jean Bréhat, Dorothe BeinemeierCast
-
Anuar Jour
Samar
-
Movies
-
Happy Holidays
We want to hear from you! Share your opinions in the thread below and remember to keep it respectful.
Be the first to post Images Attachment(s) Please respect our community guidelines. No links, inappropriate language, or spam.Your comment has not been saved
Send confirmation emailThis thread is open for discussion.
Be the first to post your thoughts.
- Terms
- Privacy
- Feedback
4 hours ago
DC Officially Confirms Killer Moth’s Design For Batman's New Appearance
43 minutes ago
Scarlett Johansson Defends Continued Support For Woody Allen: "It's Important To Have Integrity"
1 hour ago
Sinners Officially Sets New Streaming Home This Month
7 hours ago
Director Of 47% RT MCU Flop Reveals Marvel Originally Approached Them For A Different Movie
Trending Now
Mystery Sonic The Hedgehog Spinoff Movie Announced With Release Date
When Will Five Nights At Freddy's 2 Start Streaming? Our Prediction Using Real Data
Ready Or Not 2 Images Reveal Samara Weaving's Bloody Return In "Sicko" Sequel
