Happiness...seems as selfishly opportunistic as anything committed by the perverted characters it portrays.
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"Happiness" tries to be a satire, a black comedy, a dramatic slice of life, a dispassionate glance at a degenerate reality, a stark sociological treatise, and a morality tale (ambiguous at best), all at the same time. It would have taken a genius to bring these disparate elements together, and writer-director Todd Solondz in only his third film is no genius, at least not yet. He is, however, something of a magician, having managed to win prizes at the Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals, among others, and to get his film on more than a few prominent critics´ lists of ten best movies of 1998. This is comparable to pulling a rabbit out of an empty hat.
Clearly, "Happiness" is a film you will either love or hate. I find myself in the latter category. Rape, murder, obscenity, pedophilia, dismemberment, suicide, loneliness, isolation, and human suffering are not my idea of a good time. Art has the power to move us, but this was one of the most depressing movies I ever sat through, and depression for its own sake is not what I had in mind.
The plot interweaves the stories of three adult sisters living in New Jersey. The pivotal character is the younger sister, Joy, played by Jane Adams. Like the movie´s title, Joy´s name is ironic; her life is anything but joyful. The picture begins with her breakup from what is apparently the latest in a string of washout boyfriends, this one played effectively by John Lovitz. It´s not to be her last failure, though, as she is later dropped by a thieving Russian cab driver who demands money from her after a one-night affair. Her older sisters treat her condescendingly, like a loser, further flooring her ego. The next oldest sister is Helen, played by Lara Flynn Boyle, a single, attractive novelist who thinks, rightly so, that her books are rubbish. She feels shallow, superficial, inadequate, detached, and desperate; she can´t remember who she made love to the night before. She takes to phoning back an obscene caller for companionship.
The obscene phone caller, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, is a disheveled computer-data nerd who lives alone in a sterile apartment a few doors from Helen, but who is afraid to talk to her in person. It is he who also becomes involved with another lonely character, a sexually repressed neighbor woman who is more twisted than he is, who keeps body parts in her refrigerator. Lastly, there´s the oldest sister, Trish, played by Cynthia Stevenson, a housewife who seems to have it made--beautiful home, beautiful children, and a perfect, psychologist husband who looks like he just stepped out of the dad´s part in "Leave It To Beaver." Except for his troubling habit of molesting young boys. Oh, yes, and the sisters´ parents, played by Louise Lasser and Ben Gazzara, hate each other and are breaking up after forty years of marriage.
Good films, like any good literature, should entertain or enlighten, oftentimes doing both. "Happiness" entices viewers with intermittent humor and then bludgeons them with unsettling images of what it purports to be real life. Seems a little unfair, especially as the real life it presents is overstated, and the actions offer no fresh insights into human behavior. Take, for instance, the situation of Joy calling it off with her boyfriend. Their initial words are poignantly funny; his subsequent stream of invectives is not. Later, his suicide is wickedly humorous, particularly as no one in his office can remember him despite his working next to a dozen people for over a year; but his mother´s threats to Joy are not funny at all. What do we learn from this? That life is cruel?
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[release]1878[/release]