Customer Reviews

Happy Endings

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Having tremendously enjoyed Don Roos' previous effort, the Opposite of Sex, I snapped up Happy Endings upon release of the DVD without knowing anything about it. Many of my friends didn't liked the Opposite of Sex; when I asked them why, each confessed a dislike of Lisa Kudrow. When I noticed she was also in the cast of Happy Endings, and in fact plays one of the main characters, I figured I'd better shut up about mentioning my latest acquisition to some of those friends until I had a chance to watch it. Watch it I did, and I have nothing but good things to report.

Like the Opposite of Sex, Happy Endings revolves around several gay and straight characters, with enough attention paid to both, thus ensuring that the film could appeal to a mixed audience. There is where all similarities end. While Opposite of Sex had a relatively up-front and focused plot, Happy Endings manages to juggle several plots and subplots all at once. Each of the characters lives touch other characters lives in a style not unlike that of director Robert Altman. In fact, I kept thinking that the pacing and juggling of the subplots was somewhat similar to Short Cuts, or even Crash (in the way that Crash was also compared to Altman's style). Keeping everyone sorted out in my mind became something of a chore, but I generally like films that make you think and keep you on your toes. There were one or two surprises, including several totally unexpected plot twists, and that's always good too. As a comedy I didn't laugh so much as I smiled, and I asked myself more than once, "I wonder what will happen next". As the end credits were rolling I decided I enjoyed my visit with these people, and could easily have managed to sit though even more. How often do you hear that about a movie that runs over two hours?

The cast, which includes Tom Arnold, Jason Ritter and Jesse Bradford give even and professional performances throughout. It worked in a way that good ensemble pieces always work; that is, it would be difficult to single out any one member of the cast, as they worked off each other in such a way that no one could expect all the notices. Another good thing, in my book. I am definitely going to suggest to my friends that they give Don Roos another shot, Lisa Kudrow and all. I can certainly think of worse ways to spend a couple of hours.

I have to say that `Happy Endings' will go down as one of the most fulfilling experiences I've had with cinema this year. At the film's closing I was left content and approving, never once feeling gypped or left wanting. I was completely satisfied, which is funny because I've read a few reviews where people loved everything but the ending, but to me you can't go wrong ending on a close-up of the wonderfully talented Maggie Gyllenhaal singing us a lullaby.

`Happy Endings' (a title made in reference to the act of making a massage customer EXTRA happy) is a collage of people's lives interacting and eventually coming together for a `happy ending'. We have Mamie (Kudrow) who at a young age was impregnated by her step-brother Charley (Coogan) and since then they've had very little contact. Charley is now `out of the closet' and living with is boyfriend Gil (Sutcliffe) whose best friend Pam (Dern) and her lover Diane (Clarke) have just had a son (Pam being the mother) and are starting to ware on Charley's sanity. Mamie on the other hand is involved with massage therapist Javier (Cannavale) and is not the slightest bit happy with her life, and that only gets worse after meeting Nicky (Bradford) who claims to know where her illegitimate son (the one she had with Charley and then gave up for adoption) is and wants to reunite them under the circumstance that he can film it for his documentary submission into film school.

Then we have Jude (Gyllenhaal), a young attractive floozy who joins a band fronted by Otis (Ritter), a young boy confused about his sexuality and somewhat obsessed with his boss (Charley). Jude exploits that fact, manipulating him into have sex with her in order to steer his father Frank (Arnold) away from speculation his homosexuality, and then using it as blackmail against Otis, forcing him to help her hook up with his father. She is clearly only after his money (he's loaded) and this upsets Otis, but the idea of his father condemning his sexuality leave him no choice but to assist Jude.

As these stories collide we are only drawn to each character, good and bad, and brought to an understanding of what each of them needs to be truly happy. In the end we are given one long `happy ending' showing the outcome of all of these situations and how everyone involved was affected by the outcome...all except for Jude. Her ending is pure speculation, and while that may distress some it really made sense to me. Jude was by far the most engaging and interesting character in the film, due in part to Gyllenhaal's brilliant Oscar caliber performance, and to have her be the only one to get nothing out of the interaction in a way leaves me satisfied, for she was also the most mysterious of the group, for while her intentions where clear what was unclear was her motivation.

Gyllenhaal did absolutely outstanding here, delivering a performance that outweighed most I've seen all year and definitely deserved some awards attention. Also, Kudrow did wonderful, playing against type, but not `Wonderland' against type for her character still infused the comedic timing she is so well loved for...she just honed it into a more mature comedy. Tom Arnold and Steve Coogan are also wonderfully cast, and while she's only on screen a short time, Laura Dern is always a pure delight. I would recommend this film to anyone for it truly was the most satisfying experience, one of at least, I've had for all of 2005.

I thought that "Happy Endings" contained a lot of worthy elements. That I nonetheless loathed this movie shows just how greatly it failed on every other level.

As has been outlined in other reviews, "Happy Endings" contains a number of interwoven stories, including: a mother searching for the son she gave up for adoption many years prior (*and* her Mexican masseuse/lover *and* the zany would-be documentarian who is a.) blackmailing her and b.) hoping to film her search for the now-grown child), a gay couple who is questioning the paternity of their lesbian friends' young son, and a naughty young wannabe singer who seduces a gay drummer in order to get closer to his wealthy father.

This doesn't just *seem* like a lot of story for one film ... it is a lot of story for one film. And it doesn't help that writer/director Don Roos' script is incessantly bouncy. We are thrown in and pulled out of these tangent plots without ever having a chance to develop an affection for the characters or any sympathy for their plights. Of course, some filmmakers are able to successfully weave different stories together (Altman, for an obvious example) ... so the problem with "Happy Endings" is greater than its jerky and complex storyline. The real problem is that I couldn't care less about (most of) the characters.

Another thing I very much disliked about this film was its use of narrative captions. People say that voice-over is the mark of a lazy writer. If that's true, then captions are the mark of a VERY lazy writer. And they just plain did not work well with this movie. Every time I found myself feeling somewhat absorbed by the story, Roos would throw out a "witty" and ironic caption that jerked me back to reality. It's as if he wants us to respond emotionally to his movie - but then he keeps reminding us "this is just a movie, and I'm a wry director." You can't have it both ways.

Really, Roos just comes across as manipulative to me. Take the first scene. Why does he show Lisa Kudrow being slammed by the car? Simply for the shock value - for the sake of getting our attention. There is no reason for him to jump ahead in the story and start with this scene (right after she is hit, the narrative caption informs us that she is not dead - and then it jumps back in time to when the story *actually* starts). Come to think of it, there's no reason for Kudrow to get hit by the car at all. When the story does arrive at that point (toward the end of the film), the car hits her and then nothing more comes of it. It lends nothing to the plot. Cheap. Manipulative.

With that said, there are a few very funny bits of dialogue in the film (the humorous moments, though few and far between, are deliciously black). Also, Maggie Gyllenhaal did a really great job with her character (the singing seductress). Her performance was fresh, spirited and poignant, and, by the end of the movie, she was the one person I felt a connection to. But these are hardly redeeming elements. Some people obviously like this movie, but I thought it was uninspired, confused and boring. If you want to watch a better version of "Happy Endings" - i.e. a very dark comedy that touches on drama, with a number of interwoven stories and a subversive plot - watch Todd Solondz's "Happiness." It's infinitely more compelling.

I don't understand how people can hate this movie. At the end of it I was crying and there was an ache deep in my heart and I couldn't breathe. This isn't your happy comedy. The title is misleading, it is very bittersweet. I would say it's very similar to "Love, Actually" only better: the seemingly different stories in the beginning get connected like how one connects dots. In the end, one realises that you have to take the bitter and the sweet together.

Writer/director Don Loos has the corner on bizarre, wiggly, frustrating, veritas-infused glimpses at the absurdity of human 'communications/relationships' happening right now. His previous writings (some with direction credits) include 'The Opposite of Sex', 'Boys on the Side', 'Love Field', and 'Bounce', all of which explore the desperate need for regular people to find just a hint that their time on the planet makes a difference - at least in some small way despite their larger delusions. His characters are quirky, both bigger than life and pathetically dreary, and cross the lines of the expected borders of types: Roos is one of the few directors who consistently plays the 'minority groups' (gays, lesbians, African Americans, Hispanics, etc) as simply other characters on the playing field of life. And for that he deserves some respect from everyone.

HAPPY ENDINGS (suggestively referring to the ad promise found in masseur/masseuse in the Massage Available columns of magazines and some newspapers!) follows the lives of multiple characters whose rather insignificant existences intersect in random ways that produce ten 'stories', all interrelated. Topics on the table include abortion, gay relationships, homophobia, parental dysfunction/child dysfunction, emotional manipulation, blackmail, filmmaking, artificial insemination, failed dreams, and more. Sound like ingredients for a comedy? Well, no, but in Roos' funky hands these incipient tragic topics weave through tragic trails that result in dark comedy outcomes. And that is the fun of the film.

Yes, there are problems with the movie that others have pointed out well. The gimmick of sidebars explaining what the script doesn't attack, visible on the half screen with scene change action, begin as clever and end up as annoying: if the script can't carry the issues without footnotes then there is just too much information for the viewer to digest. What keeps this movie afloat are the performances by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Lisa Kudrow, Jesse Bradford, Bobby Carnavale, Tom Arnold, Steve Coogan, Laura Dern, Sarah Clarke, Jason Ritter, David Sutcliffe and Amanda Foreman. This is a talented cast and at times we feel they are actually overcoming the plot's weaknesses with their strong imagery.

Every Roos film feels like a work in progress, but there are enough fine lines of creativity that promise us someday they will all gel into an exceptional film. This one is too long and too choppy and too difficult to follow with all the visual interruptions of sidebar words to be his best work. Grady Harp,
November 05

Lots of hand-held shots and relationship-driven drama get around a limited budget. The knowingly self-referential indy filmmaker also has an important part in one of the three Pulp-Fiction-style relationships that eventually intertwine, somewhat incoherently.

Was the movie worth the investment in time? Yes, it's good enough for that. Lisa Kudrow and Tom Arnold are great in their roles. I wouldn't make a monetary investment in the movie though. It's not *that* good.

Happy Endings is another of the numerous great-grandchildren of Nashville, intersecting story lines about flawed but real characters whose lives, in this case as suggested by the title -- which of course comes from the massage world and has a decidedly different meaning there -- do get better. There is fine ensemble acting by people you didn't know had it in them -- Tom Arnold in particular, who plays a widower in denial about his gay son and who falls hard for Jude, Maggie Gyllenhaal, a drifter who also seduces the gay son and gets pregnant by either father or son. Which leads her to Lisa Kudrow, Mamie, who years earlier got pregnant by her half-brother, who is now gay, and decided to, but then did not, have an abortion and is now....

You get the idea. The stories connect, break apart, re-connect, and most of the characters are entertaining, confused, good-hearted and caught up in the same kinds of predicaments that most everyone spends their life getting into and -- neatly or messily -- out of.

Some reviewers call the Gyllenhaal character unsympathetic and predatory. Not so, it is through contact with her that many of the characters start being true to themselves and get set on their path to their personal Happy Ending. This is made manifest in the touching final scene of the film.

Just to counter some of the negative reviews here, I was tempted to give Happy Endings 5 stars, but it's not ambitious enough or original enough for that. Still, while it doesn't hit you over the head and, as with Nashville and all films of this ilk, you have to give yourself up to its distinctive flow, Happy Endings is a definite keeper.

"Happy Endings" (sly, double entendre title but yes there is a masseur among the characters) is director, Don Roos' third feature after the delicious, smart and witty "The Opposite of Sex" and the much maligned "Bounce," which I also admired...almost alone in the world, I might add.
"Happy Endings" is all the things that "The Opposite of Sex" is and more. A couple of the subjects that Roos addresses here, and as usual his films are rife with the fabric of life's difficulties, life's aliveness, etc, is the subject of children: having them, not having them, worrying about them, hoping the best for them and pining about how they will/do turn out and last but not least it is also about the nature of parenting. On the other hand, "HE" is also about the crazy, wonderful process of just living out your life and all that entails. "HE" is warm, optimistic and thoughtful. There are no Tri-pods, no Hogwarts, and no Bats. It's complex and simple at the same time...it's about Us.
Roos has mellowed considerably over the last several years as most of us have or will. This movie is more emotionally naked and available than "The Opposite of Sex." But Roos' trademark sardonic, dark humor is without a doubt still a big part of what makes his films special and this film is brimming over with it. Case in point: the character of Jude played to the hilt by Maggie Gyllenhaal: she's a gold-digger with scruples...sad and wan a lot of the time but hopeful and, unlike most of the other characters, grounded with a world-wise savvy that belies her young age. Jude is human spark-someone that lights up a room when she enters, someone that can always make you smile. Jude is not any smarter than the rest of the great cast: she's just more open and real and holds nothing back. She wears her heart on her sleeve and her sleeve is smudged with the detritus of living.
Lisa Kudrow as a Family Planning Counselor, Mamie is also a revelation. Gone is the brittleness of her character in "The Opposite of Sex, " and she has replaced it with a vulnerability, a wariness of life. Mamie has lived some and she is often scared, often unable to make a decision. Kudrow's performance is warm, thoughtful and emotionally real and approachable.
Everyone in this film makes big, turn-your-life-around mistakes but Roos issues no judgments whatsoever. He is the observer, the presenter of the facts: he shows us...he does not tell us.
Not everyone in "Happy Endings" ends up happy. Some end up sadder but smarter...others somewhere in-between. Ultimately though, "Happy Endings" engages you in its world. And damn... so few movies around today can grab you like that.

When Don Roos' "The Opposite of Sex" dropped into theaters almost ten years ago, I instantly became a fan. That film featured Christina Ricci's first grown-up character and easily her best and most fully realized performance to date. Wicked and cynical and bitterly funny, it is a film that manages to strike an unusual balance. Taking the coming-of-age genre, turning it upside down with great doses of political incorrectness, but ultimately grounding things with a realness--it is a deft comedy that stands the test of time. Taking a detour with the Paltrow/Affleck weepie "Bounce," Roos fashioned an earnest if not particularly entertaining film. Finally, after a five year hiatus, Roos returns with another film--the coyly titled "Happy Endings." An ambitious, and heavily populated, ensemble comedy--"Happy Endings" may be gentler in spirit than "The Opposite of Sex," but it is no less worthy.

In the film's opening moments, a woman is frantically running down the street and is plowed into by a car. The accident appears to be serious, but as we pull away from the wreckage--the film announce itself as a comedy. It's hard not to appreciate that! However, I was still fearful that this was going to be one of those impossibly quirky pictures that people seem to love so much. But I needn't have worried. Telling multiple intersecting stories, "Happy Endings" puts together an unlikely cast including Lisa Kudrow, Jesse Bradford, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jason Ritter, Tom Arnold, Laura Dern, Steve Coogan, and Bobby Cannavale (and many others). And while there is a certain preciousness to the film, and while some of the situations seem unlikely or outlandish--the film's contrivances end up be overshadowed by the able cast and genuinely funny script. The characters, even engaged in the most bizarre circumstances, are still grounded in a reality that makes this relationship picture work.

For, at heart, "Happy Endings" is all about exploring different relationships. Covering plotlines involving abortion, blackmail, golddigging, incest, stolen sperm, prostitution, and sexual variations of all kinds--this film sounds much more distasteful than it actually is. It is within these deviant stories that we uncover the dynamics that make complex relationships work or not. The film's many entanglements include different variations--brother/sister, gay couples, father/son, younger woman/older man, heterosexual couples, counselor/client, and so much more. With smart and funny dialogue and appealing performers, it's hard not to get caught up in the film's ribald spirit.

I'm not saying that "Happy Endings" is a perfect film, but I admired it's scope. I was fascinated by the various stories--even the ones I didn't particularly believe. The picture wraps itself up fairly neatly--which one might suspect from its title. But overall, I found "Happy Endings" to be engaging, witty, and entertaining with some nice dramatic moments sprinkled in with the outrageousness. It's all edited together deftly as you spend just the right amount of time with each story before moving on. Never dull, the intriguing "Happy Endings" is definitely worth a look. KGHarris, 03/07.

Filmmaker Don Roos brings a unique perspective to his films, and this omnibus 2005 film exemplifies his idiosyncratic style quite well. Even though it doesn't work in its entirety, it has a great ensemble cast and some really sharp observations about a loosely connected group of people who have in common a certain disassociation with the inner truths in their lives. In fact, the deceptive nature of the characters is the movie's leitmotif, and Roos crosscuts their interactions with helpful title cards that often explain their inner motivations for their actions.

There are three basic stories that constitute the film, which recalls the multi-layered, somewhat enervated spirit of Robert Altman's "Short Cuts" especially given the LA-based ennui both films portray with accuracy. The first story deals with step-siblings Mamie, who as a teenager, had an affair with her stepbrother Charley that leads to an unwanted pregnancy. Years later, Mamie is ironically an abortion clinic worker, while Charley is gay, partnered contently with Gil for five years and running their long-dead parents' last remaining restaurant. Mamie meets Nicky, a grungy filmmaker who blackmails her into participating in a film about meeting her now-grown-up son whose identity he holds from her. In order to control the spiraling out-of-control situation, Mamie convinces Nicky to make a film instead about her intermittent lover Javier's massage practice and how he has mastered the practice of "happy endings", one of the reasons for the movie's title.

The second story revolves around Charley's obsession with the paternity of a son which their lesbian best friends have just conceived. He is convinced the son is Gil's which leads to unexpected revelations that backfire on Charley. The third story focuses on Otis, a closeted teenage drummer who works at Charley's restaurant and has a crush on him. Otis meets Jude, a vagabond singer who favors Billy Joel ballads and beds Otis in order to have a place to crash. Once established in the palatial home, she attaches herself to Otis's divorced father Frank, and her deceptions eventually expose themselves. It all sounds complicated and sometimes feels quite erratic, but Roos makes the film intriguing to watch.

The acting certainly helps. As Mamie, Lisa Kudrow again shows how she can use her somewhat flaky persona in an arresting way that can be funny and heartbreaking. Steve Coogan effectively brings out Charley's neuroses, while Jesse Bradford is convincingly suspect as Nicky. Laura Dern doesn't really have much to do as one-half of the lesbian couple (Sarah Clarke is the other half), while Bobby Cannavale gamely brings out the swarthy gamesmanship of Javier. Jason Ritter (the look-alike son of the late John Ritter) plays Otis with the right amount of confusion and anxiety. As the bonhomous Jude, Maggie Gyllenhaal (Jake's sister) gives a shrewd performance that never borders on the obvious, while Tom Arnold surprises with a subtle turn as the comparatively innocent Frank.

The DVD has an alternate commentary track with Roos, Kudrow and cinematographer Clark Mathis, as well as ten deleted scenes of varying quality and three scenes that constitute the lacking gag reel. During the final film's lengthy 128-minute running time, there are scenes that seem to drift with no reason and character motivations that go unexplained. Regardless, the film is definitely worth seeing.