Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Jon Lovitz
Lara Flynn Boyle
Directed By:
Todd Solondz
There is very few movies like HAPPINESS out there and most normal human beings would say it's a good thing. You probably have a person in your circle of friends and acquaintances who describes him or herself as being a dark, twisted and misunderstood loner, right? HAPPINESS is the tool your need to verify the level of truth in those claims. Sit that person in front of Todd Solondz's filthy masterpiece and if that said person doesn't walk away in outrage after thirty minutes, maybe (s)he is as fucked up as (s)he claims. You have to understand, HAPPINESS might just be the meanest thing ever filmed. I love those movies that dare the viewer to sit through. There is no gore, very little filthy language and the characters are the soft-spoken suburbanite type and yet, Todd Solondz managed to write and direct an assault on everything you every thought for granted. I think it's clear that I like this movie. Well, no. It's false, actually. I don't like HAPPINESS, I love it.
I can sense your curiosity through the computer screen already. What is it about? HAPPINESS tells the story of the Jordan sisters Joy, Trish and Helen. They are three adult women facing an existential crisis in search for the ever difficult-to-grasp idea of happiness. Joy (Jane Adams) is looking for it in men, Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle) in work and Trish (Cynthia Stevenson) in her little family. Their need for a happy ever-after will drive them to the darkest places. Joy will meet abusive men who are looking to get advantage of her for their own happiness, Helen will chase the proximity of a creepy neighbor (Hoffman) in quest for artistic validation and maybe the darkest fate of them all is reserved to Trish , whose friendly-neighborhood-shrink of a husband (played to near perfection by Dylan Baker) is really a pedophile. Did I mention HAPPINESS was a comedy? A very funny one on top of it, but it will require you to check your coat of morality at the door.
It's a slow movie, one that could almost be a stage play with a little bit of work. Each frames are beaming with the bright colors you usually find in wealthy places. The bright green of picture-perfect lawns, the blinding white of houses, the almost surreal yellowish glare of the sun, etc. The shots are long and patient, drawing out everything out of the actors' games. That seems to be the key to success with comedies, patience. Of all the cast, Dylan Baker has been handled the darkest, most fucked up character in Bill Maplewood and boy, does he make the best of it. Bill is fighting his pedophile urges back until the day he meets Johnny Grasso, a closet-homosexual neighborhood kid. His son Billy befriends Johnny at baseball practice and invites Johnny to sleep over at his house. The pressure is reaching critical level for Bill and what happens is not pretty at all. You don't see anything, but the way Todd Solondz hints at the truth and makes it crawl under your skin is somehow almost as bad.
While Bill is the shining star of this infernal show, there are many storylines that keep criss-crossing throughout the movie. For example Allen (Hoffman) a lonely pervert is also looking for happiness in his obsession over Helen, his neighbor. Each night, he keeps releasing some sexual pressure by making pornographic crank calls and sometimes, he receives the uncanny visits from his neighbor Kristina (Camryn Manheim) who seems to be only looking for company. And there's Joy also, who might have been looking for happiness a little too hard when she turned Andy (Jon Lovitz) off for the wrong reasons at the beginning of the movie. HAPPINESS is funny, EXTREMELY wrong and a tad mysterious. Is there a reason why the lives of the Jordan sisters are going downhill or is it because they are chasing an idea that doesn't exist? HAPPINESS is a movie with fangs, claws and a huge pair of balls. It's not something that you will find often, but it's not meant to be. Watch it at your own risk, you might just lose any sense of morality after that. But it's all worth it. HAPPINESS is Todd Solondz's deranged masterpiece.
SCORE: 94%
Recommendation: Watch it and rewatch it, daring your buddies to sit through it.
I can sense your curiosity through the computer screen already. What is it about? HAPPINESS tells the story of the Jordan sisters Joy, Trish and Helen. They are three adult women facing an existential crisis in search for the ever difficult-to-grasp idea of happiness. Joy (Jane Adams) is looking for it in men, Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle) in work and Trish (Cynthia Stevenson) in her little family. Their need for a happy ever-after will drive them to the darkest places. Joy will meet abusive men who are looking to get advantage of her for their own happiness, Helen will chase the proximity of a creepy neighbor (Hoffman) in quest for artistic validation and maybe the darkest fate of them all is reserved to Trish , whose friendly-neighborhood-shrink of a husband (played to near perfection by Dylan Baker) is really a pedophile. Did I mention HAPPINESS was a comedy? A very funny one on top of it, but it will require you to check your coat of morality at the door.
It's a slow movie, one that could almost be a stage play with a little bit of work. Each frames are beaming with the bright colors you usually find in wealthy places. The bright green of picture-perfect lawns, the blinding white of houses, the almost surreal yellowish glare of the sun, etc. The shots are long and patient, drawing out everything out of the actors' games. That seems to be the key to success with comedies, patience. Of all the cast, Dylan Baker has been handled the darkest, most fucked up character in Bill Maplewood and boy, does he make the best of it. Bill is fighting his pedophile urges back until the day he meets Johnny Grasso, a closet-homosexual neighborhood kid. His son Billy befriends Johnny at baseball practice and invites Johnny to sleep over at his house. The pressure is reaching critical level for Bill and what happens is not pretty at all. You don't see anything, but the way Todd Solondz hints at the truth and makes it crawl under your skin is somehow almost as bad.
While Bill is the shining star of this infernal show, there are many storylines that keep criss-crossing throughout the movie. For example Allen (Hoffman) a lonely pervert is also looking for happiness in his obsession over Helen, his neighbor. Each night, he keeps releasing some sexual pressure by making pornographic crank calls and sometimes, he receives the uncanny visits from his neighbor Kristina (Camryn Manheim) who seems to be only looking for company. And there's Joy also, who might have been looking for happiness a little too hard when she turned Andy (Jon Lovitz) off for the wrong reasons at the beginning of the movie. HAPPINESS is funny, EXTREMELY wrong and a tad mysterious. Is there a reason why the lives of the Jordan sisters are going downhill or is it because they are chasing an idea that doesn't exist? HAPPINESS is a movie with fangs, claws and a huge pair of balls. It's not something that you will find often, but it's not meant to be. Watch it at your own risk, you might just lose any sense of morality after that. But it's all worth it. HAPPINESS is Todd Solondz's deranged masterpiece.
SCORE: 94%
Recommendation: Watch it and rewatch it, daring your buddies to sit through it.