The holidays are all about family, but a new comedic-yet-raw indie film shot on the North Shore shows just how chaotic, dysfunctional and emotional this time can be.
“Merry Good Enough” follows Lucy Raulie (Raye Levine) and her complicated relationship with her family while she’s home for the holidays.
After her mother (Susan Gallagher) goes missing on Christmas Eve, potentially at Lucy’s fault, it’s up to Lucy to work with her big brother Tim (Daniel Desmarais), little sister Cynthia (Comfort Clinton) and their father (Mad Men’s Joel Murray), who shows up unannounced, to bring their family back together.
The 97-minute film takes place in New England and features spots well-known to North Shore residents such as Route 1, Peabody’s McVann-O’Keefe ice rink and police station, Lucky Dog in Beverly, the Portside Diner in Danvers and a real family’s Woburn home that’s lit-up impressively for Christmas each year.
The Raulie’s house is the real-life home of one of the crewmember’s parents in Lynn, and other scenes were filmed in Saugus, Boston, Medford and Wayland. The movie’s shoot took place in December 2022, giving it an authentic (and cold) New England holiday vibe.
Directors Caroline Keene and Dan Kennedy wanted to put their own spin on classic holiday films by featuring a modern, relatable family at Christmas. With Keene raised near Cape Cod and Kennedy from New Hampshire, setting the film in New England was a no-brainer.
“The crewmen and technicians in the Massachusetts area are fantastic, and the locations all have a really authentic feeling,” Kennedy said. “It just felt like a movie that wanted to shoot here, even though it can be relatable and in a lot of places.”
The film and its themes of family struggle and hope is personal for Keene, who sent the script to Kennedy after the pair met in Boston in 2017, she said.
“It’s a movie about mothers and daughters, but it’s also a movie about sibling dynamics,” Keene said. “It has humor but also real tension and conflict, and it has people experience all those different emotions that all of us feel during the holidays with our family.”
“Merry Good Enough” is available to rent on Apple TV, Amazon, Vudu, Comcast and other rental streaming services starting Dec. 19.
Contact Caroline Enos at CEnos@northofboston.com.