Happy Death Day
**This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.
Christopher Landon’s way of making a “Groundhog Day” slasher film is so ingenious it’s infinitely rewatchable without being annoying. This could have easily been dull, but the second Tree wakes up to the same day, we’re on board despite her being insufferable. That’s quite a balancing act, which this film pulls off brilliantly.
A big part of that is because Jessica Rothe as Tree is a treat. Even as she treats everyone like shit, the more she’s forced to relive this one day, the more we empathize with her. As her predicament continues, though- like Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day”- she’s forced to re-evaluate herself, in hopes of figuring out why this is happening. Each variation brings new questions, but the same truth- she needs to change to live.
The ingenious thing about Scott Lobdell’s screenplay is that, at a certain point, the film embraces dark humor that allows Rothe to take things to another level before transitioning to a different structure to the day. Tree’s situation grows more dire- in a way that the sequel plays off of beautifully- while also pushing things further in terms of the mystery. The script does a dynamite job keeping us as off-balance as Tree is, while also keeping with a fundamental truth about murder mysteries- the killer is usually hiding in plain sight.
Landon is someone who enjoys playing with the conventions of the slasher genre, as well as the idea of the final girl/killer dynamic. (See his great 2020 film “Freaky.”) Here, the final girl knows she’s the final girl all the way through; it just takes some time for her to figure things out.
This film is all about Rothe, and God is she great in these films. This is one of those roles genre films give an actor that audiences never forget, and she roles with it completely. As Tree is forced to through the day over and over, she starts to realize things about the people in her life, and her, that leads to surprises abound. I cannot get enough of this film. I’m glad it came into my life.
