This film begins with a question that does not completely become clear until the final monologue-what happens when you walk in the middle of somebody else's story, and become involved in it, perhaps deeper than you wanted to? Is there any changing of a trajectory once it gets past a certain point in time? Or is it best to just sit back and watch it all happen? Jaglom's character walks into a situation that three younger women are about to leave, and at first (once he resigns himself to his position) he wants to help correct the flaws in their lives, but eventually he realizes that they really don't need his help.
Henry Jaglom's films are interesting in that they are disproportionately populated by complex, interesting women that are surrounded by guys that are mostly creeps. The male-to-female ratio is the opposite of most movies that don't qualify as "chick flicks" (and no, I would not count this or any of Jaglom's others as such), and yet it sees the gender dilemma more clearly than in any film by any other filmmaker that I've seen. His films are an exploration of interpersonal relationships between women in a way that every other (male) director shies away from...which is partly why his films remain relatively obscure, and so many critics view his work with suspicion.
Is New Year's Day perfect? Not quite. It has a few too many characters and a few moments that don't fit in with the rest of the picture, but boy did it make me think and feel. The final reel is as much a roller coaster as I've ever been on outside of an amusement park, and just when you think none of it can be tied together, it all unfolds perfectly logically.
The filmmaker Glenn Gordon Caron described his writing process being protracted by waiting for "the truth" in the situation he is writing about. Meaning, the twist in the plot that makes you go "Aha!" and realize how everything that came before it makes so much more sense, and yet, in a way you would never have foreseen. New Year's Day's "truth" unfolds in the most beautiful way I've ever experienced in any form of media, and more than makes up for its shortcomings.
