Raindance 2025 | Movie Review: "Our Happy Place" And How Less Is More
7/12 ForReel Score | 3/5 Stars
Our Happy Place is indie cinema in its truest form; the budget - or rather lack thereof - is evident in every frame, but one can’t help but admire what is achieved with so little. The film finds us in a textbook cabin in the woods in the mountains of Big Bear, California, but you won’t find any celebs skiing in this tale. Raya, the cabin’s inhabitant, lives a lonely life, her days punctuated solely by caring for her comatose husband and intermittent phone calls with her best friend. To add an extra layer of stress to her already joyless existence, she finds herself waking up in the depths of the forest every morning riddled by horrific dreams with no idea how she got there.
The central performance by acting-novice Raya Miles is genuinely brilliant; Miles gives little-to-no indication whatsoever that it’s her cinematic debut. She holds the screen with a gentle confidence, perfectly depicting one woman’s descent into hysteria. It’s a film which requires a lot of her. She is the one constant of the piece, other characters only intermittently appearing. We have flashbacks to the before-times in which she appears to be a different person entirely, glamorous and undoubting, and then the present days in which she communicates a profound feebleness. She’s losing - or has lost - the will to live. It’s a quiet performance, and one which is largely solitary. Her screen partners are primarily her comatose husband, understandably non-responsive, or Tracie Thoms as her best friend, communicated solely through Zoom.
The film works as a chilling time-capsule of that period of isolation - the film is set (and was filmed) during lockdown, but COVID-aside, it’s tale of confinement in any and all of it’s forms. Raya finds herself in a period of solitude, cut off from the outside world, and with the added terror of waking up out in the forest every morning. Even if it wasn’t COVID, she would still be on her own.
The film is largely a success. Some brilliant horror set-pieces are achieved despite the shoe-string budget, set-pieces that will have you genuinely questioning how they did that. It’s a nice feeling to have as a viewer. The answer to that question with the median mid-budget Blumhouse horror would be ‘CGI’, but with Our Happy Place, you can sense the filmmakers creativeness and ingenuity on screen. A lot has been achieved from a little. And the tone is aptly dread-filled throughout. The story lags a touch in the second act in which we seem to be going around in circles, but as things unravel in the third act, the film’s centre of gravity is realigned. It’s a strong ending, if not unexpected, and it leaves a solid impression as the credits roll.