Strong performances from an excellent cast transcend overblown metaphors and a meandering plot in “All Happy Families.” The title is inspired by the famous first line of Anna Karenina, which claims that all happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. It is not wrong to call the family in this story happy because the Landrys, two adult children and their parents, are unhappy and drive each other crazy. This is not one of those heart-wrenching family reunions, full of bitterness, despair and recriminations, like “The Humans” or “August: Osage County.”
The Landrys may experience some jealousy and disappointment, but there’s never any doubt that they have what families need: They talk to each other, they care about each other, they want the best for each other, and they’re willing to help each other out. OK, they may be more or less willing to help each other out, and sometimes they are. Instead, they make things worse and may not be as self-aware as they should be. But overall, their intentions are good.
The two adult children are Graham (Josh Radnor), a failed actor and aspiring writer who is jealous of his successful brother, Will (Rob Huebel), co-star of a popular television series. Will plays the father of the show’s star, a teenage girl. Landry’s parents are the ultra-reliable Sue (Becky Ann Baker, who nearly steals the movie) and Roy (John Ashton). Sue is about to retire from her old job as an administrative assistant, the kind who runs the office, and the unreliable Roy drinks too much and has a gambling problem. At her retirement party, Sue says that after so many years, it was time to leave her boss or her husband. Roy sternly says that she tells that joke too often.
Will, the more financially stable, owns what was once the family home, now a duplex. Graham lives there and is responsible for renting out the other half. Sue and Roy come to paint the other apartment and prepare it for a new tenant. No one addresses a problem we see with Graham in the first scene, as a sympathetic plumber (Antoine McKay) runs a camera down a pipe in the house, revealing a dead rat and even more disturbing problems.
That’s an overwrought metaphor: The house represents the family’s failure to address fundamental issues while distracted by cosmetic fixes. It also represents the family’s inability to break away, with Graham still trapped in his childhood bedroom and both resentful and dependent on Will as their landlord and, if you pitch Graham’s script to your series’ showrunners, an avenue for opportunity. That script has Will’s character off-screen for the entire episode, which isn’t hard for Will or us to recognize as hostile.
Sue’s retirement isn’t the only major change the family faces. The duplex’s new tenant is Dana (Chandra Russell), a former classmate of Graham’s. Though we don’t know the details of their past, it’s clear there’s an immediate warmth and attraction strong enough to rouse Graham from his slumber. Will’s career is in jeopardy over allegations of misconduct. He wants to retreat to the house for a while. Sue is having issues with her former boss, who grabbed her breast at the retirement party and wants to keep calling her. Another family member (Ivy O’Brien) shows up unexpectedly, newly out as trans, giving us a chance to see, despite her flaws, how warmly supportive the Landrys are. The scene with Ivy and her grandmother, Sue, is especially tender.
Director Haroula Rose, who co-wrote the film with Coburn Goss, gives it a relaxed, lived-in feel. The actors, especially Baker, bring nuances to the characters that capture our interest, earn our affection and make us reconsider Tolstoy: there is more than one way to be a happy family.