Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Jane Slavin, Lizzy McInnerny, Greta Scacchi, David Menkin.
It is a nightmare of the modern world, to find yourself arrested and placed in the void of bureaucracy, becoming almost disappeared, because the logical systems and beliefs of freedom have been erased by paranoia, the uniforms of hate and distrust blocking access to leave a country, on the basis that you may have posted a thought online, overstayed your welcome by a day, or just been someone to whom a member of their ever-increasing numbers of officialdom took exception to; this is the trauma awaiting all in this brave new world.
Whilst played with a measure of gentleness, Viv Groskop’s Happy Holidays is soaked in meaning and intent, the drama of Kate Marston’s incarceration serves as not just a warning to all heading to the United States of America in the foreseeable future, but a sample of possibility that this will take effect in what was euphemistically known as ‘The Free World’.
Kate, played by Jane Slavin, has been detained by ICE for staying one day over the allotted permitted time of her visa, a miscalculation that to the sensible, whilst displaying a disregard for time, is not worthy of placing someone into the system for, and it is only by the virtue of having friends who will not allow her to become forgotten that she survives her ordeal; a ghost in the machine.
The focus maybe on Kate, but it falls to the snideness and open scurrying of preserving one’s own skin whilst performing a not-so-subtle discharge of pointed comments about the woman behind bars to Greta Scacchi as Barb. This sense of dissociation from her own country’s fall from civilisation is telling and filled with tension, always quick to blame Kate for her actions rather than address that which requires greater scrutiny.
Viv Groskop carefully weaves a truth between the effect of winter whimsey and does so with spirit and intention. A woman caught between two worlds as Christmas approaches, at all times signalling the desire for peace and the underlaying charge of continuing descent into totalitarianism with controlled expression and charm.
Happy Holidays is a gentle reminder that whilst we may outstay our welcome during the holidays, it is nothing compared to the fear at the centre of political bullies, on all sides, using your mistakes to beat you into submission.
Ian D. Hall