(courtesy IMP Awards)
SNAPSHOT
Unemployed yet ambitious 24-year-old Ben Russell (Chandler Riggs) brings his girlfriend named Cassie ( Samantha Isler ) to his rural Oregon hometown to meet his family and celebrate Christmas. The arrival is bumpy. The family’s dynamic unearths internal conflict Cassie is having with Ben. The night they arrive, a late night argument turns into a breakup. Cassie determines she should go home for Christmas after all… But because of the remote location, a raging snowstorm, and busy holiday travel, there is no way for her to leave. Cassie is now stuck with her newly minted ex and his entire family until the end of Christmas. Breakup Season is written and directed by the American indie filmmaker H. Nelson Tracey, making his feature directorial debut after many other short films previously (he also made this live-action Geri’s Game remake). It’s produced by Stephen Mastrocola, Rafi Jacobs, Liana Montemayor, Christopher Jennings, H. Nelson Tracey. (courtesy First Showing)
Everything about Christmas is fizzy-wizzy, festively wonderful, right?
Much as we’d like to think that, and Christmas specials and music and books and movies and … well, everything works overtime to convince of the false truthfulness of that idealistic notion, the reality is the season can be awful sometimes.
For instance, it can be the time when a couple breaks up, and while that’s bad enough in itself, it’s a thousand times worse when one half of the now defunct couple can’t get to her family to celebrate and lick her relational wounds, and has to stay with her ex and his family.
Yeah, not chestnuts roasting and all that, now is it?
But as the trailer for Breakup Season beautifully illustrates, in its quietly thoughtful indie way, perhaps something good can come out of it, after all?
Following its premiere at the 2024 Desertscape Film Festival, Breakup Season opens in U.S. cinemas on 15 November.