Customer Reviews

Happiness

5 star:		(150)
4 star:		(63)
3 star:		(22)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(45)

 

 

There have been few times that I've sat for more than two hours, intently watching a film, screaming "I hate this movie!" as the credits begin to roll, but then realize that I don't hate it at all. In fact, I don't know if that has ever happened before, but last night, after the final, revolting line of Todd Solondz's 1998 shocker Happiness, I did just that, and probably because I couldn't bring myself to admit I liked it. It's a movie that deals with wildly perverse subject matter, contains not a truly likeable character in the whole bunch, and doesn't even bother to show the consequences of the horrible actions for any of its transgressors. If there is a poster-child movie for complete and total amorality, Happiness is the one. But I liked it, and that scares me.

Joy (Jane Adams) has absolutely nothing in common with her name; her sister Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle) is a sultry, narcissistic author who wants the experience of being raped to make her writing authentic; other sister Trish (Cynthia Stevenson) is married to Dr. Bill Maplewood (Dylan Baker) and has three kids. Dr. Bill is a pedophile who pleasures himself to teen magazines in the backseat of his car and has dreams of murdering strangers in a park; Dr. Bill's strangest patient, Allen (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), makes obscene phone calls and has an inventive way of pasting postcards to the wall; Allen's neighbor, Kristina (Camryn Manheim), is in love with him but has her own disgusting little story to hide. Nearly every character has a dark side, the only truly 'good' one (Joy) seems to get everything wrong, and the one romance that blooms during the movie has a twinge of wrongness to it. The movie is a strung-together mosaic of perpetual sadness, the search for the remedy, and the stomach-churning causes of it all; and yet, between my gasps of shock and uneasiness, I can't say there's a boring moment in the film.

The most difficult character in the movie to even look at is, obviously, Dr. Maplewood. Dylan Baker has that glaring gaze that could boil cheese, and it takes on an especially creepy tone when he's gazing longingly at his son's baseball teammate at a little league game. But, believe it or not, Solondz injects comedy even into something as despicable as the Maplewood situation. The film's most controversial scene, involving drugged chocolate sundaes and a tuna salad sandwich, is god-awfully wrong...but had me thinking about that great moment in Psycho when Marion Crane's car stops as it's sinking into the swamp and Norman Bates panics for a moment. And laughing, too. This element of the plot angered many people in 1998 and is still something to wrestle to this day; why make Maplewood a three-dimensional man with real emotions when all he is is a predatory pederast? Because it wouldn't be interesting, it wouldn't be watchable, if he wasn't. Take a climactic scene in the film, that must deal with the truths of Maplewood's actions: Solondz creates a scene that is brutally honest and deeply disturbing, but still grounded in the poignancy of a father-son discussion.

I found myself alternating between pure puzzlement and a desire to turn the movie off in its first, love-it-or-leave-it act. But Solondz is in such control of his connecting plot strands that he makes the links quickly, moves in and out of them with ease, and even allows for unexpectedly moving moments to occur. The great subplot of the film is with Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Camryn Manheim. In some ways, it sums up the entire theme of the film, while having all of Happiness' strengths and weaknesses. Solondz gives us a great scene where the two come together, dancing to a pop song in a bar, and it's a brief moment of euphoria and sweetness despite the depravity that surrounds and underscores it. Of course, for some viewers, the hidden lives of even Allen and Kristina may be too strange to merit caring about. I struggled with it, too.

Solondz made a very good film a few years ago, Storytelling (rent it), that contains similarly risque subject matter but ends up being too facile in the resolutions of the two vignettes that comprise the film. His breakthrough movie, Welcome to the Dollhouse, came before Happiness, and takes a similarly piercing look at real life but is bogged down too much in its deadpan humor and relentless punishment of its protagonist. Happiness straddles the shortcomings of both of those films, neither offering a simple resolution to its problems or being too strange to the point where unrealism sets in. It is real, it is complex, and it's also deeply disturbing and maybe morally offensive. I'm also known for not really caring about the morality of a movie, so maybe that's why I was never bored or too offended at any time.

The best line in Happiness comes toward the very end, when the sisters and their parents are sitting around talking about a grisly New Jersey murder, involving dismemberment and plastic baggies, that occurred in the apartment building of Flynn Boyle's Helen. "Everyone uses baggies; that's why we can relate to this crime," she says. Happiness is one of those twisted American suburbia flicks that contains things that happen every day, probably closer to us than we expect. That's why I could relate to this movie. I don't expect you to; in fact, I don't blame you if you hate it with a passion or don't get past the first ten minutes. Things will happen that will disgust you, revolt you, and disturb you. There is no reason why anyone should like this movie or why it should 'work.' But I was entertained in some sick and twisted way, even while my jaw stayed glued to the floor. Don't say I didn't warn you, and extensively...but I dare you to see it. A-

Happiness tells the terrible truth about our blank lives. No guns, no catchphrases, no handy resolution. This is us. Reviewers who claim that it's too negative should try a simple experiment: get out your addressbook and go through ten randomly-chosen names. Then ask yourself whether Happiness is really an exaggeration of the terrible loneliness of cubicle-life in the American middle class.

Hate this film if you like, but at least tell the truth about why you hate it: because it shows the simple, bland, unbearable truth.

Definitely one of the best movies of the decade, and one of the best independent films of all time. I saw this movie in the theater because i was already of fan of the director, Todd Solondz, after seeing and loving his first film, Welcome to the Dollhouse. This film goes where no film has dared even think about going in the past, completely redefing the term "black comedy". The movie intertwines several loosely related plotlines(a la Pulp Fiction), all involving outwardly banal suburban characters whose private lives are actually teeming with depravity and tragedy, ineptitude and self-loathing. The film is at its most audacious when following the trials and tribulations of an average suburban psychologist who also just happens to be a homosexual pedophile. In this particular storyline, Solondz takes this repellent figure, this Grendel of modern society, and exposes his life in such tragically comic and crushingly depressing tones as to make you reevaluate your initial preconceived notions of the John Wayne Gaycie's of the world. This film has the singular distinction of containing the only scene in which i felt the urge to laugh, vomit, and cry simultaneously. If you are a prude or a moralizing, close-minded fundamentalist of one type or another, you will probably find this movie "filthy" and "morally bankrupt". If so, then you, of course, are the type of person who needs to see this movie most of all. Anyone else with an open mind and a taste for shocking, thought provoking media of any kind will enjoy this unsentimental look at the by-products of America's Suburban Utopia.

I find it interesting that if you make a movie with people getting their heads blown off and their guts spread all over the ground most people don't even bat an eye. But, make a movie about a pederast and people want to form a lynch mob.

Yes, horrible things happen in this movie. Guess what? Horrible things happen in real life. I think the whole point of this movie was to show some people trying to be happy, but going about it in all the wrong ways. I think another thing that bothers most people about this movie is that most of the characters are presented (initially) as "normal" people, but we end up seeing them for "horrible, depraved sickos" that they are. The problem lies in the "fact" that depraved sickos aren't allowed to be "normal." We're "normal." Depraved sickos wear hockey masks and do horrible things like in those other movies. They don't hold down jobs and have families, etc.

I'm not sure why I'm even writing this "review" except to say that I think this is a great, challenging movie. The acting is awesome, the plot is interesting, and the problems are real.

I also wanted to comment on another reviewer's statement that the scene with the boy and his father at the end of the film was pointless. I felt that was one of the most crucial, and moving, scenes of the entire film. Here we have a man who does, what we would consider incorrigible things, but he could never consider doing those things to his own son because he loves him so much. I'll be .....! A pedophile with a heart? Nah...

Man, this is difficult, difficult movie!! It's packed full of thoroughly unlikeable characters. And they do some awfully uncomfortable things.

The actors are all outstanding. Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays a loser (what a stretch!!) who starts making obscene phone calls to his next door neighbor (Lara Flynn Boyle), who enjoys them. What happens when they meet? That's just one sample of the kind of interactions you might see in this movie. It plays a little like MAGNOLIA, but without much of the hopeful tone that movie ends with.

But the source of all the controversy in this movie is the character played by the brave, brilliant Dylan Baker. He plays a totally milquetoast, average, middle-class father. Yet his character is also a child-molester. I wouldn't say his character is presented sympathetically, but he isn't always shown as just a monster either. There's one scene, wherein his son has just discovered his beloved father's secret and questions him in detail about his twisted desires. The scene is hands-down the most uncomfortable thing I've ever watched. I was literally squirming...it is so shocking, so obscene and so terribly, terribly sad. In two minutes, we see how several lives are shattered forever.

Baker's performance should have been nominated for an Oscar, but this would have required too much bravery on the part of the selection commmittee.

Do I recommend the film? Well, if you aren't afraid to have your limits tested, absolutely. It has a lot to say, not just about child molestation. It's well-acted and written, and has many very funny moments too (one character to another: "I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you." to which the response is: "I'm not laughing." It's from the creator of WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE, so you know it's going to be unconventional. But it is exciting filmmaking. ABSOLUTELY KEEP THE KIDS AWAY FROM IT!

"Happiness" is not a movie for everyone by any means. Personally I thought it was occasionally hilarious, brutally honest about the private lives of unhappy people, and frequently painful to watch. The director goes for maximum discomfort in many scenes which really make you squirm in your seat. If you consider yourself an optimist than this movie might seem stomach-turning and exaggerated and pointlessly misanthropic, and you might understandably despise it. I myself could definitely relate to the characters who are unable to escape the cycle of prolonged periods of self-loathing punctuated by moments of brief relief (although I have no desire to make obscene phone calls or prey on young boys).

There are four loosely related storylines in "Happiness". The most memorable one looks at a suburban dad who harbors secret fantasies about prepubescent boys. The striking thing is that the man is presented sympathetically -- he is sick, he knows he's sick, but he has nowhere to turn for help. Even though his actions are repugnant, I still ended up feeling sorry for the man himself. I thought the treatment of the issue was effective and not too apologetic for the man's proclivities; child abusers are rightly reviled by society, but the movie reminds you that the taboo is so strong that there is no place for potential offenders to turn. The focus with sex criminals is punishing them after the fact, but are there any outlets where such people can privately seek help before they succumb to their urges? If there aren't, perhaps there should be.

The other subplots follow a chronic masturbator, a down-on-her-luck woman who is mistreated throughout the movie in ways that straddle the knife-edge between cruelty and humor, and an older couple whose marraige is dissolving. Maybe it's just me, but I thought Ben Gazzara was scene-stealingly funny as the stoic retiree who just wants to be alone.

Anyway, this is a worthwhile movie to see if you are not automatically turned off by the inner lives of desperate people. The uncomfortable scenes force you to think about happiness itself: what is it, who deserves it, and how do I go about getting it anyway?

I purchased this movie knowing only that it was comparable to the likings of "American Beauty", which happens to be my favorite film of all time. "American Beauty" did turn out to be easily compareable to "Happiness", but less graphic as well as less disturbing. "Happiness"'s cinematography presented the movie with a morbid yet funny element, as is shown in Bill Maplewood's dream. I knew from that moment fourth that I was in for a brilliant film. I was not disapointed at all. I reccomend this movie to mature audiences as well as indie film fans. 5 Stars.

This film is dark, disturbing, and filled with flashes of black, absurd humor. The principle characters are ordinary middle class people who happen to be haunted by their very personal demons. I ask myself why I loved this film, and why I didn't simply run screaming in disgust. My answer is that I could relate to these characters; that their dilemmas rang true to me, and I cared about their fates. If you're a person with a sunny disposition and not inclined towards introspection, you'll find no use for this film, and you'll wonder why anyone would bother to make it. But if you're of a darker nature, struggling to stay on track and do right in a world that appears to be amoral and inappropriately happy, then consider spending an hour or two with Todd Solondz and his characters.

Happiness is one of those rare films that takes a look at lives that are so often "hidden" from public view. It seems that just about everyone in this movie has serious personal problems; and the film gives us a frank and often brutally honest view of troubled lives.

There are several main characters in the film whose lives all intertwine to some degree. There's Mona and Lenny Jordan (Louise Lasser and Ben Gazzara) whose marriage is coming apart after 40 years of togetherness; and we see their three daughters Trish Maplewood, Joy Jordan and Helen Jordan (Cynthia Stevenson, Jane Adams and Lara Flynn Boyle, respectively). Trish has no idea that her husband Bill Maplewood (Dylan Baker) likes little boys way too much as he supports his family by being, of all things, a psychiatrist.

In addition, we also meet Allan (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Allan is frustrated for lack of a woman in his life so he makes lewd crank phone calls to women. We also meet the Maplewood's two sons, Billy and Timmy. Look for some particularly fine acting from Rufus Read who plays Billy Maplewood.

As the film progresses, we see all of these people trying to find happiness. Although they try to make emotional connections with other people they fail. Allan can't do any better than a woman with a rather grisly little secret; and Mona cracks up when Lenny, her husband of forty years, leaves her for "no one" and the one time we see Lenny with another woman he complains that he feels "nothing." Of course, trouble looms over the Maplewood household as Bill Maplewood tries desperately to hide his pedophilia from his family. It doesn't help that the love life has faded out of the Maplewood marriage.

Suffice it to say that the plots and subplots take many interesting turns along the way; and although the subject matter can definitely be disturbing few people who do choose to watch or buy this movie will ever switch it off before the ending. Actually, there is one person who does achieve a degree of happiness at the very ending of the movie--but I'll leave out the specifics so you can experience that for yourself.

The DVD comes with pitifully few extras. Instead of a few commentaries and some extra deleted scenes, we get little more than scene selection and a "filmography" for five of the actors in the movie. A disappointment for sure!

Overall, this excellent movie is for a crowd that's not exactly squeamish. Happiness eagerly delves into deeply disturbing yet all too real problems society faces every day--and when the movie ends you feel better off for having watched it. One reviewer wrote that they felt like "a fly on the wall;" and I think that's the effect director Todd Solondz wanted to create.

Happiness shows us a "slice of life" with several types of characters that are not normally main characters in films; and there are many plot diversions to add extra spice to the overall plot.

I highly recommend this film.

How can a film that contains essentially very little nudity(if any that I can recall) and no outstanding violence still be rated NC-17? The answer to that question was unimaginable until I saw this very interesting approach. Todd Solondz goes overboard with shock in this lengthy and twisted comedy-drama. If you find yourself laughing at this film and then you feel guilty about it you are not alone.

I stayed up one night until 2:30am attached to this film. It is horribly depressing and none of the characters are remotely likable but you relate to them nonetheless and eventually they manage to win you over. This film sticks in your head and is NC-17 for a reason. It takes a pedophile and a sexually harassing office worker (played brilliantly by Philip Seymour Hoffman) and it allows you to see a side of them that is just like yourself. You will find yourself relating to characters you hate and then you will find yourself feeling sorry for them. This film does something to the subconscious that can only be explained as disturbing. Solondz is one of my new favorite filmmakers.