Happiness is a film which, despite the sickening overtones, is just
hysterical. I think a lot of people just aren't patient enough to get it, either that or they just don't think in the way
Todd Solondz, the director does,
one iota. This film wasn't designed to be
sick or perverted, though it comes across that way.
A lot of your friends will think you are strange for liking this movie, but it's beautiful, it really is.
Solondz himself describes Happiness as a series of intertwining love stories, stories of connections missed and made between people, how people always struggle to make a connection, and to what degree they succeed or don't.
"Love" stories... what an interesting description. Depending on your mood, you will either be horrified (by the wrenching scene where a psychiatrist confesses his paedophilia to his ten year old son), or you will find yourself giggling, or you may find yourself feeling empty. You get to see a lot of the ugliness that comes along with beauty. And indeed, a bit of the beauty that comes along with ugliness. Or you will find yourself one of the many people who simply do not get the movie, and don't care to.
The storyline is very complex, there are about a dozen central characters, not one of them more outstanding than another. Most distressing was the character, equal amounts family man, therapist, and paedophile, who participates in the most disturbing father/son dialogue ever captured on film. The thing which strikes me about the movie is, that no matter how disgusting we find these people, no matter how dysfunctional they seem at times, we all act like them on occasion, some of us daily. So, for me, the people who don't understand this movie, or rather do not want to, are partly denying that which we really are.
Cast: