Happiness

Centred around a New Jersey based family of three sisters, their parents and their partners and acquaintances, this film looks at their lives. Involving a lonely sister, a sister with a good family life, a paedophile, a telephone sex pest and an elderly couple breaking up, the film follows their short stories through whatever it takes them.

I remember hearing this film reviewed as being pretty good, but it was pointed out by the critic that it was far from a movie to take a first date to! Seeing it now for the first time he was very right, in fact I would say it is the type of film that could make a partner worry about you if you suggest you watch it together. What type of audience this was made for is questionable but it is not without merit even if it is very, very bleak. The actual `plot' is no more than a collection of stories that roughly overlap due to the character's relationships to one another. Most of these work well enough and are interesting, but the odd one falls slightly flat – Allen's overweight flatmate goes a little too far and the Russian thief subplot is not really engaging.

However for most of the film the stories are very engrossing despite being very sad. The plot assumes unhappiness of one form or another to be a given as part of life, and I think that that is a pretty fair assumption. Some of the characters bring it on themselves, some of them are simply alone however all the scope of human misery is here even if it takes the form of events that not everyone will be able to relate to. No matter whether or not you like the characters you will feel for them – they are very well written and the dialogue feels natural. While the paedophile character will turn many stomachs, I did respect the film for not monsterising him.

Baker plays him very well, and mixes it with all the hallmarks of a `normal' guy. His chats with his son form a strand that runs through the film well and is ultimately quite moving and hard to watch. Hoffman and Boyle don't really have a great deal to do and their characters were harder for me to buy into, as their relationship was not clear. All the cast do a good job regardless mainly because the characters are very well written and fit together in a great ensemble presentation. Special mention should go to Lovitz for a great little cameo that opens the film – in 4 minutes he gives a better performance than I have seen him give anywhere else.

Overall this film is not an easy, fun film to watch but it is very well written even if some of the threads do not engage as much as the others. The conclusion of the film offers no respite and only sees a collection of characters hurt by themselves or others who have little hope for the future other than to just keep plodding on. Like it or not the message of the film is powerful even if the presentation doesn't do anything to make it accessible. When REM close the credits singing `happiness where are you? I've searched so long for you' it is difficult not to feel something.

This is the best movie I never, ever want to see again. It's dark, disgusting, powerful, painful and honest. The focal point of cinema has been used here as an assault on every day life. Everyone has had these moments at one point or another in their lives and now here's the hot-faced shame and moral nausea experienced vicariously through a parade of terrible, terrible people, not parsed out by blessed months or years between horrifying events as one would hopefully find in real life, but non-stop for however many minutes this film lasts. I can't deny that it was a good film, but it's also a film that hurts to watch. Good job in an era when the only thing I can remotely equate this experience to is being in the front row at "Cloverfield" and being surrounded by people vomiting.

Happiness - which centres around the lives of three sisters - Joy who's permanently unlucky in love, Helen a successful poet whose next door neighbour is obsessed with her and phones to explain this in graphic detail and finally there's Trish who has it all, a big house, a couple of kids and a successful psychiatrist husband who himself harbours uncontrollable urges.

The sisters are all somewhat fractured of mind - for example Lara Flyn Boyle's character plays an author suffering writers block bemoaning the fact that she wasn't abused as a child that could lend her work some authenticity - so she's delighted when she gets an obscene phone from a one of the many fat ugly sex obsessed dysfunctioning American neurotics that seem to be this seasons slim sexy movie star successes. Happiness manages to be truly provocative and also madly comical at one and the same time... for instance I never thought I could feel sympathy for a paedophile or a bloke making obscene phone calls but with tact and courage Happiness confronts these modern folk devils.

Happiness is anything but; as the characters lives intertwine in the search for happiness they find only loneliness, obsession and some serious psychological problems. In particular the psychiatrists story is remarkable with performances second to none as he tries to explain to his son about his paedophile tendencies.

Happiness explodes some of the fear related misconceptions showing that repression is the oppression of our generation... as if an open mind is just that. Open and willing for some perverted notion to crawl right in...

Directed by Todd Solondz Happiness is a slice of American life that isn't normally dealt with this honesty, making it a compelling watch, which will both amuse and seriously disturb for its two hours and fifteen minutes running time. Happiness is a must see.

When a film opens with a scene between two people, one breaking up with the other, culminating in the dumped calling the dumper "Shit", you know you're in for something dark with this film. When the scene is followed by the simple opening title "Happiness" written in pretty cursive writing, you know it's going to be ironic as well. "Happiness" was written and directed by Todd Solondz, the mind behind the film "Welcome to the Dollhouse", a film that was fantastic but really hard to watch if the viewer has any kind of heart. "Happiness" follows in the same vein, though this time, instead of centering around one character, Solondz puts a New Jersey family at the center of the film and develops new characters through their relationship with the family.

Overseeing the family is Mona Jordan (Lasser), the matriarch of the family who has just been told by her husband that he no longer loves her. Lenny Jordan (Gazzara) is simply sick of being tied to someone continuously, while insisting that there is "no one else". Joy Jordan (Adams) is a serially employed thirty-something single female who is constantly belittled by her family and ignored by society. She is most close to her sister Trish Maplewood (Stevenson), a stay at home mother with three kids who likes to say she "has it all". Her husband Bill (Baker) is a psychiatrist who outwardly appears to be a stoic family man, but is actually a pedophile who, within five minutes of the introduction of his character, goes to a convenience store to pick up a teen heartthrob magazine so he can masturbate in the back seat of his car to the pictures of the young boys on the cover. The third sister in the family is Helen Jordan (Boyle), an author recently made semi-famous for an angst-ridden published diary (filled with lies) who has a very high opinion of herself and a way of making others feel badly about themselves while never raising her smooth-as-glass voice or making her jabs obvious. Her neighbor Allen (Hoffman) is in love with her, only he is so inept at socialization and unable to approach her that he attempts to satisfy his desires by first making random obscene phone calls to various women, and then making Helen a target herself. Another neighbor, Kristina (Manheim) is an insecure, quiet woman who is constantly trying to befriend Allen, possibly as a love interest.

There is quite a cast of characters to this ensemble picture, and the story lines become intricate and increasingly more complicated as the film progresses. "Happiness" is filled with excellent character actors (at the top of the list would certainly be Hoffman) but the most compelling character and character portrayal would be Baker's character of Bill Maplewood. Obviously, a film that deals unflinchingly with pedophilia and child rape, particularly under the guise of a "dark comedy" is going to be held under closer observation, but even under this scrutiny, Baker's portrayal is absolutely flawless. While his character is a monster, Baker is able to provide a human side to it, where I was left thinking he was a terrible man, but also had sympathy for him because he had a sickness. There are not many actors I can think of that could pull off this role as stupendously as Baker did. Baker was the clear star of the film in my opinion, but the performances of every person in the cast were fantastic as well, particularly the young boy who played Baker's oldest son.

As I stated earlier, "Happiness" is rife with irony because on the surface, everyone is miserable. However, it soon becomes relatively clear that this is just how these people are, and each of them to some extent ARE living in happiness, as misguided as it may appear to be. Everyone ends up being hurt or disappointed on some level, but they are still together and seem to be satisfied to be in the destructively emotional rut they are in. Solondz, who really has his finger on the pulse of misery, (Just like when, upon hearing that Stephen King gets inspiration for his books from his dreams I was glad that he at least makes millions from being terrified at night, I would hate to get a front row seat in Solondz's psyche) really gives the audience something to chew with "Happiness". I loved the chances he took with the subject matter, I loved the performances, and I loved the film as a whole because it was just so damn well done. It's not an easy film to watch, and it's not an entirely pleasant one to watch at times, but it is truly a piece of genius with the way it is intricately put together; envision trying to glue tiny shards of crystal into place with a tweezers – the characters in "Happiness" are as fragile and ready to shatter at any moment, whether they can see it for themselves or not. 8/10 --Shelly

Gradually, as I watched this movie, I became aware that I was witnessing some of the most powerful and honest acting, writing, and directing I had ever experienced. And I'm glad, because if this material had been attempted by anyone without extreme skill and sensitivity, it would have been a monstrous disaster. As it is, I don't think I would add it to my DVD collection. I don't know if I could watch it again, and I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable people seeing it on my shelf unless they knew me well. There are moments of great hope in this movie, when you think misery may finally give way to happiness. There are moments of great honesty, when a character says just what you'd expect them to say, and you realize how "safe" every other movie character has been in comparison. The humor that other reviews talk about is not the kind of humor that makes me laugh, personally. It's the dark, visceral humor of human weakness, meanness and even pathology. I still appreciate it for what it is, and it is used in a profound and delicate way. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who is willing to accept that life, and especially sexual life, is really much more complex and difficult than we usually admit. I recommend watching it alone, or with a friend or partner with whom you can discuss the most emotionally difficult topics. This movie will test you if you stick with it, but you'll know you saw something profound.