Dallas-Fort Worth filmmakers Toby Halbrooks and James M. Johnston, who are making waves in the indie film world, won a prestigious grant from Los Angeles-based Film Independent.
The duo won the Piaget Producers Award, a $25,000 grant that honors up-and-coming producers who make independent films with limited resources; Johnston and Halbrooks won out over three other finalists.
Film Independent, which produces the nationally televised Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Festival, presented Halbrooks and Johnston with the Piaget at an event in Los Angeles on January 11.
In his acceptance speech, Johnston, who founded Dallas-Fort Worth vegan restaurant Spiral Diner with his wife Amy McNutt, was quoted by Variety issuing an exuberant exclamation that "we just got in from Texas, and now we've got all this money!"
Johnston has also been nominated for a Spirit Award for Pit Stop, a film he made with a team of Texas filmmakers, including co-producers Jonathan Duffy, Eric Steele and Kelly Williams; writer David Lowery; and director Yen Tan. The film is up for the James Cassavetes Award, and winners will be announced at the Spirit Awards on Saturday, March 1, which will be broadcast at 9 pm on IFC.
Johnston and Halbrooks are in Park City, Utah, this week for the premiere of their film Listen Up, Phillip at the Sundance Film Festival.
Of all the formulaic movie genres, Christmas/holiday movies are among the most predictable. No matter what the problem is that arises between family members, friends, or potential romantic partners, the stories in holiday movies are designed to give viewers a feel-good ending even if the majority of the movie makes you feel pretty bad.
That’s certainly the case in Oh. What. Fun., in which Michelle Pfeiffer plays Claire, an underappreciated mom living in Houston with her inattentive husband, Nick (Denis Leary). As the film begins, her three children are arriving back home for Christmas: The high-strung Channing (Felicity Jones) is married to the milquetoast Doug (Jason Schwartzman); the aloof Taylor (Chloë Grace Moretz) brings home yet another new girlfriend; and the perpetual child Sammy (Dominic Sessa) has just broken up with his girlfriend.
Each of the family members seems to be oblivious to everything Claire does for them, especially when it comes to what she really wants: For them to nominate her to win a trip to see a talk show in L.A. hosted by Zazzy Tims (Eva Longoria). When she accidentally gets left behind on a planned outing to see a show, Claire reaches her breaking point and — in a kind of Home Alone in reverse — she decides to drive across the country to get to the show herself.
Written and directed by Michael Showalter (The Idea of You), and co-written by Chandler Baker (who wrote the short story on which the film is based), the movie never establishes any kind of enjoyable rhythm. Each of the characters, including competitive neighbor Jeanne (Joan Chen), is assigned a character trait that becomes their entire personality, with none of them allowed to evolve into something deeper.
The filmmakers lean hard into the idea that Claire is a person who always puts her family first and receives very little in return, but the evidence presented in the story is sketchy at best. Every situation shown in the film is so superficial that tension barely exists, and the (over)reactions by Claire give her family members few opportunities to make up for their failings.
The most interesting part of the movie comes when Claire actually makes it to the Zazzy Sims show. Even though what happens there is just as unbelievable as anything else presented in the story, Showalter and Baker concoct a scene that allows Claire and others to fully express the central theme of the film, and for a few minutes the movie actually lives up to its title.
Pfeiffer, given her first leading role since 2020’s French Exit, is a somewhat manic presence, and her thick Texas accent and unnecessary voiceover don’t do her any favors. It seems weird to have such a strong supporting cast with almost nothing of substance to do, but almost all of them are wasted, including Danielle Brooks in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo. The lone exception is Longoria, who is a blast in the few scenes she gets.
Oh. What. Fun. is far from the first movie to try and fail at becoming a new holiday classic, but the pedigree of Showalter and the cast make this dismal viewing experience extra disappointing. Ironically, overworked and underappreciated moms deserve a much better story than the one this movie delivers.
