Rating: 
Summary: A creepshow -- equal parts puritanical and sensational
Review: Is there an American director who hates sex more than Todd Solondz? In every subplot in this film, sex is always the bad guy, the thing terrorizing the middle class. If your picture of modern life is a series of bad lays, then I guess this is your ticket. Personally, I thought the picture lacked depth and character, and seemed more intent on shock than sense.
Rating: 
Summary: I'm not laughing at you! I'm laughing with you!
Review: A wonderful script, excellent directing, and great acting. Rarely does a movie have no faults. If pressed, most of us will come up with one or two things we would have liked to have chaged in a movie that we thought was good. Happiness, for me, was a perfect movie. Hilarious from beginning to end. The scenes between the father and son were priceless. A movie that doesn't loose an ounce of it's humor when seen again and again.
Rating:
Summary: Content with Happiness
Review: This was a very difficult movie to watch. But, eventually you realize that it's supposed to be. The director provides some of the most outlandish scenes. But, I have to admit I laughed alot, winced some, and it made me think too. This was one of my top ten movies last year.
Rating:
Summary: Bold. Fresh. Honest. Contemporary. Great filmmaking.
Review: Happiness finds those little cracks in our collective fear of happiness and rips them open. It's not afraid to dive into the most pathetic souls and find at the center of it - fear of happiness, or acceptance, or love. Most people are gripped by fear and build very small worlds for themselves, and this wonderful film explores those fears completely. Granted, there are two scenes in the film that I question the need for, but the overall is great filmmaking. I applaud the forward stance and udder lack of Hollywood "Happiness". It's a brave film and refreshing to experience.
Rating:
Summary: Filth!
Review: This movie glorified the shock value of sexual peccadillos to its maximum. I actually felt violated watching this movie. Completely unentertaining. Made me feel very uneasy watching it. It seemed to have no point.
Rating:
Summary: Sick, perverted fun
Review: Todd Solondz was the director of that lovable family feature called Welcome to the Dollhouse. Now he brings us "Happiness," a different kind of tale. Very different. There was only 1 theatre in the entire city of Houston that decided to pick up this Art House "Hit." I enjoyed this film very much, Laura Flynn Boyle had a cute part in it, as well as SNL's Molly Shannon. The main character Jane Adams (You've Got Mail, I Love Trouble) basically has a relationship problem, her sister's husband happens to be a pedophile, and it gets more warped as the movie proceeds. The ending was terrific, it has to be my favorite ending to a movie so far. I don't wanna spoil it, but everyone should go out and see this strange, sad movie.
Rating:
Summary: Squeamish? Easily offended? Leave now...
Review: While "American Beauty" painted its dysfunctional family in definably human shades, "Happiness", also a black comedy about an extended suburban family, reveals the darkest elements of human nature in explicit, repulsive detail. It's a tale of phone-sex addicts, paedophiles, wannabe rape victims, murderers, thieves and onanism-fixated adolescents. "Man About The House" it is not. While this sounds like an unbearable prospect (and for some viewers, it almost certainly will be), it's oddly hilarious and fitfully moving. Personal morals will be brought into question when the viewer finds himself sympathizing with a paedophile, but director Todd Solondz handles such taboos with sensitivity and a jet-black sense of humour. Performances, too, are top-notch. The ubiquitous Philip Seymour Hoffman is smartly cast as a Lara Flynn Boyle-neighbouring pervert, while Boyle herself is masterful as the slutty, self-centred elder sister. Crucially, no character is exactly how he or she might first appear, and here's where the film has its grimly fascinating fun. It's also fair to say that "Happiness" would be unbearable to watch were it not so damn funny. Witness the frumpy, overweight neighbour of Hoffman chomping strawberry ice cream, or the blasé reaction of Adams' workmates when she reveals that her ex-boyfriend has died. Even the scenes involving the paedophile (superbly acted by Dylan Baker) have a surreal humour about them, such as the sheer frustration he exhudes when trying to get his son's friend to eat a tranquiliser-coated tuna sandwich. The film's final scene involving a balcony, a dog, and a scantily-clad woman, while a hilarious denouement of such a downbeat film, is oddly moving in that it is the only genuine slice of happiness throughout the film. Now, that's subversive. Take heed, this film is not for the squeamish or the easily offended, but for those with an open mind and a gut for evil cynicism, toilet humour, and a respect for dangerous, risky cinema, "Happiness" comes as something of a revelation. A quiet, confrontational masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: This film is NOT honest.
Review: "If you can't handle the realism, it's your problem; this movie isn't afraid to be honest; blah blah blah." On the contrary, Solondz goes to ludicrous extremes of contrivance to convince us that the world is horrible, people are monsters, and there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it. Every single character in this film is depressed, insane, a pervert, or a liar, and every character is unhappy. That's neither realistic nor, in my opinion, "honest" on any deeper level. Solondz does his utmost to deny the existence of any chance for redemption. The worldview this movie conveys seems to be that of a deeply troubled person desperately trying to tell us that everyone else is as miserable as he is. I'm not saying some of the things he depicts don't happen in the real world (albeit in less contrived ways). But to focus on them, to the exclusion of anything else, to make a point about the impossibility of obtaining happiness, seems dishonest, manipulative, and downright irresponsible.I really wanted to like this movie. It was well made and well acted. I even gave it the chance to sink in, since many of my favorite movies become my favorites only after a while of thinking about them. But the more I think about this one, the angrier I get. Why would anyone want to use art in this way?
Rating:
Summary: Perhaps one of the Greatest Comedies Of All Time.
Review: Some of the reviewers here who hated "Happiness" seem to suggest that that they are not 'uptight, conservative or naïve'.. Well this movie was truly about them; their denial and their failure of autonomous cognition as psuedo-moralistic sheep of society.
Thank god that a lot of people don't get this movie. This movie was made to alienate and subjugate mediocre americana.
"Happiness" is a 'top-ten' cult classic and will stay that way for a long while. This is absolutely one of the most scandalous and devious comedies of all time, reminiscent of early John Waters but less-overt and more psychological. Brilliant in its subtlety within a perversion of american ethics du jour and one of the best comedies ever made.
Rating: 
Summary: Where do I go with this movie?
Review: After watching Happiness, part of me wants to applaud the creators for daring to illustrate unexplored reaches of human lust, self-loathing and lonliness. Another part of me, after watching this movie, wants to condemn the creators for their explicit depiction of these desires, namely, the father who fantasizes and acts upon his desire for tween boys. As the above reviewers have noticed, this movie makes it it's mission to concentrate on negative-"Let's stir up some controversy!"-shock value. If I were making the comparison between the 'behind the scenes suburban lonliness' movies that I have seen; I would certainly say that movies like American beauty or Donnie Darko had more of an effect on me. What I am left with after watching this movie isn't a lesson, or a moral. Just a rotten feeling in my stomach.
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