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Happiness
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Genre | Kids & Family, Comedy |
Format | Multiple Formats, Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Letterboxed, NTSC |
Contributor | Jon Lovitz, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Dylan Baker, Justin Elvin, Ben Gazzara, Jane Adams, Lara Flynn Boyle, Rufus Read, Lila Glantzman-Leib, Louise Lasser, Todd Solondz, Cynthia Stevenson, Gerry Becker See more |
Language | English |
Runtime | 2 hours and 14 minutes |
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Product Description
Product Description
The search for happiness connects lonely lives in this subversively funny film from Todd Solondz, director of Welcome To The Dollhouse. Meet three sisters at the center of a struggle with the secret demons of middle class perfection. Challenge your sympathies and see the movie that made over 50 top ten lists of 1998.
Amazon.com
At times brilliant and insightful, at times repellent and false, Happiness is director Todd Solondz's multistory tale of sex, perversion, and loneliness. Plumbing depths of Crumb-like angst and rejection, Solondz won the Cannes International Critics Prize in 1998 and the film was a staple of nearly every critic's Top Ten list. Admirable, shocking, and hilarious for its sarcastic yet strangely empathetic look at consenting adults' confusion between lust and love, the film stares unflinchingly until the audience blinks. But it doesn't stop there. A word of strong caution to parents: One of the main characters, a suburban super dad (played by Dylan Baker), is really a predatory pedophile and there is more than an attempt to paint him as a sympathetic character. Children are used in this film as running gags or, worse, the means to an end. Whether that end is a humorous scene for Solondz or sexual gratification for the rapist becomes largely irrelevant. Happiness is an intelligent, sad film, revelatory and exact at moments. It's also abuse in the guise of art. That's nothing to celebrate. --Keith Simanton
Product details
- Aspect Ratio : 1.85:1
- Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
- MPAA rating : Unrated (Not Rated)
- Product Dimensions : 0.57 x 5.3 x 7.51 inches; 1.6 ounces
- Item model number : LGT71362DVD
- Director : Todd Solondz
- Media Format : Multiple Formats, Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Letterboxed, NTSC
- Run time : 2 hours and 14 minutes
- Release date : April 27, 1999
- Actors : Jane Adams, Jon Lovitz, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Dylan Baker, Lara Flynn Boyle
- Subtitles: : English, Spanish, French
- Language : English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
- Studio : Lions Gate
- ASIN : B00000IC7G
- Writers : Todd Solondz
- Number of discs : 1
- Best Sellers Rank: #24,497 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
- #2,734 in Comedy (Movies & TV)
- Customer Reviews:
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Top reviews from the United States
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But let's be real here --- this film is brilliant! From the writing, acting, screenplay, musical score, its utterly magnificent. Yup, Solondz struck a lot of nerves with people on this one. What do we make of it? I'm not too sure. Maybe it's not a social commentary after all. Maybe it's just Solondz making one sick little flick that turned out to be superb. Who knows anymore.
Whatever it is, he should just keep doing it.
Top reviews from other countries
This is why I do not particularly care for many highly acclaimed films, such as The Godfather and The Dark Knight. I feel that, no matter how good the acting is, no matter how good the directing is, no matter how good the script is, films like The Godfather and The Dark Knight can ultimately be nothing more than entertainment. They give us complex, interesting narratives, but these do not deal with the problems of life, rather they take us away from the problems of life. They are escapist. While of course there is a need and a role for escapist films, the true cream of the crop are films which immerse us in reality, which examine human existence in all of its emotional intensity, and which perhaps help us deal with human existence. The Seventh Seal, by Ingmar Bergman, is a film such as this. Another film such as this is Happiness, by Todd Solondz.
I won't go into the plot in detail, because that would be going over what you already know for those who have seen it, and spoiling it for those who haven't. Let's just say it follows the three Jordan sisters of New Jersey; Trish, whose psychiatrist husband Bill is secretly a paedophile and budding child rapist; Helen, who is being stalked by the lonely, sex-obsessed Allen; and Joy, who gets a job teaching newly arrived immigrants in NYC, and starts an affair with one of them, only for him to emerge as a thief who is only after her money. There's also the sisters' parents, Lenny and Mona, who have retired to Florida and are now splitting up after decades of marriage.
Happiness strips reality bare. It shows us how the world really is, shocking us out of any cosy, bigoted notions about life and people which we might have.
The theme of Happiness ostensibly appears to be the idea that middle-class, suburban society is not what it seems; there is perversion lurking behind every door, and the perfect family man living next door to you could in fact be a paedophile and a rapist. As Bill says to Joe Grasso at one point in the film, "appearances can be deceptive." This is doubtless a genuine theme which Solondz wanted to express, but I feel that it goes deeper than this.
I think what Solondz was really trying to do in Happiness was to tear down our ideas about morality. In Happiness, people are shown as they really are, not divided off into the black and white realms of good and evil, as bigots tend to see people. Happiness twists normal ideas of good and bad beyond recognition. The most obvious example would be the character of Bill - he is a paedophile, but is shown not to be a monster but a caring father who is deeply tormented by his own urges. But the character of Allen is another good example - he may immediately strike us as a pervert, but he turns out to have a caring side, as shown when he gives Kristina a tissue and offers to take her out. Kristina is obsessed with Allen and is stalking him, just as Allen is himself stalking Helen - by showing a stalker WITH a stalker, Solondz shows us the relativity of morality, and one woman's stalker is another woman's stalking victim. The real world is not a black and white one of evil stalkers and good victims - it is much more complex, composed of subtle shades of grey. Kristina goes on to reveal to Allen that she killed Pedro, the doorman who raped her. When she asks Allen if they can still be friends, Allen says "I guess, yeah, I mean everyone has their, you know, their plusses and minuses." This reiterates the same theme of moral relativism - the world is not neatly divided into camps of good and evil, we're all on the same scale, and the most evil person in the world has good in them, just as the most good person in the world has evil in them. A final illustration: at one point Joy is on the phone to a man she thinks is a potential suitor, and she says "God you're just like me." At that moment, the screen splits to reveal that she is in fact talking to Allen, who is masturbating over their conversation. Joy has acknowledged that Allen is just like her. "Perverts" are not evil monsters who have nothing in common with "normal" people; they are, in fact, just the same when you get down to it.
Another theme in Happiness is that of determinism - the idea that people do not choose their actions, and they cannot therefore be held morally responsible for them. Confessing his paedophilia to his son Billy, Bill explains his actions by saying "I couldn't help myself", a line that has already be spoken by Kristina. And is it me, or does Billy look like a young Allen? Billy and Allen are also both obsessed with masturbating. Is Solondz saying that Billy has been turned into a pervert like Allen by the trauma of discovering his father's paedophilia? Whether determinism is right or wrong, it is undeniable that people are often forced into unpleasant situations by prior circumstances - so it is hard to impose judgement on them.
In Happiness, it in fact becomes IMPOSSIBLE to impose judgement on ANYONE. What Happiness ultimately presents to us is a total moral nihilism - good and bad do not exist, there is only happiness and (more often) suffering. It's not that there is perversion lurking behind every door, it's that there ARE no perverts. "Normality" and "perversion", "good" and "bad", do not refer to anything at all. Whether Solondz is correct about that or not, it is certainly a view of the world to which I can relate.
Now, it may be possible to criticise Happiness as being too pessimistic, as offering no solutions to the problems of life which it highlights, but the fact is that there often ARE no solutions. Happiness is a film which, above all, remains true to reality, and in reality, there are often no solutions to the great deal of suffering in life. So why watch it? I have already said that films about the problems of human existence are superior to escapist ones, and while that may be true of, say, The Seventh Seal, which ultimately gives a very optimistic message, why is it true of such a downbeat and depressing film as Happiness? The answer is that Happiness is, against all the odds, NOT depressing. Despite the unpleasant events with which it deals, Solondz makes it a very funny and humane film. I actually find it quite a therapeutic film to watch when I am down, in that it lays bare the problems of life and changes my perspective on them, helps me take a more philosophical attitude to things and a less judgemental attitude to other people. By dealing with the problems of life so candidly, the film Happiness is actually one of the few things that has come out of a human mind which actually transcends those problems. It is like an island of humour and wisdom in a world full of suffering and madness. Solondz said the following about his film Welcome to the Dollhouse, but it could apply equally well to Happiness: "The film is a comedy because that is the only way I know how to deal with excruciating torment, and I find something both funny and poignant in the struggle to endure humiliation."
I suppose you could call it an ‘ensemble’ piece as there are numerous characters all woven together around the three central characters who are sisters all at various stages of adulthood and doing their best to either live with what’s become their lot in life, or desperately try to change it. It’s basically a family drama, but with a few – very – dark helpings of black humour. However, the overriding thing to say about ‘Happiness’ is that it deals with the worst themes you can probably think of and presents them in a way that forces you to think about those who it’s easy to despise without a second thought. Therefore, you don’t just have to be in the mood for something depressing, but also something that really goes into areas of human nature that you would probably not like to dwell on, most notably child abuse.
‘Happiness’ is a film that will certainly leave an impact on you, even if it’s just you swearing you will never watch something like that again. However, for all the darkness and realism it presents, I have watched it about three times and I think it’s a worthy film. The performances are all excellent. You’d be hard put to it to find a weak link among the cast. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is naturally excellent, but perhaps the hardest role falls to Dylan Baker who plays possibly one of the most (bizarrely!) relatable child molesters you’ve ever met. It must have been a horrible role for him and he plays it to perfection.
Like I say, don’t expect feel-good and get ready for a rough ride. But, if you’re in the mood for something as deep as this it will certainly make you wonder who’s sitting opposite you and what goes on behind the façade of family-friendly life.