All Happy Families review – a sweet reckoning with family strife

Tried and tested formula is the order of the day in Haroula Rose’s breezy family reunion comedy All Happy Families, a film which proves that there’s still fun to be had from cleaving to templates and staying well within the white lines of cosy convention. Josh Radnor plays beardy black sheep Graham, a down-at-heel misanthrope who is set to rent out his oversized garage space to charismatic local chef Dana (Chandra Russell) once he’s dealt with a visit from his folks (Becky Ann Baker and the late John Ashton) and his idiot brother Will (Rob Huebel) who is the star of a popular TV soap opera and wants everyone in the Chicago area to know it.

There’s no real plot arc to the film, it merely details how everyone’s anxieties manifest and stealthily cause harm to friends, lovers and sometimes even the random waitress at a local dive bar. Albeit in an entertainingly comic fashion. The throbbing interpersonal strains intensify with a gentle logic, even if, tonally, the film does sometimes stray into a mid-tier streaming dramady serial at times. Yet Radnor is a lovable lug who forges a sweet bond with his tenant-to-be, and everyone else ultimately wants to have their secrets and vices without causing upset to others. Which, as the ironically-primed title suggests, is actually something that doesn’t tend to occur in real life.