Happiness

Rating:
Summary: One of my faves
Review: Dark, gritty, and honestly thought provking and intriguing.
Taboo social subject matter investigated in an awkward and unexploitative way.
Solondz best (of his three films)!

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing and Hilarious
Review: Many movies are disturbing and enthralling at the same time, but 'Happiness' has gone that extra mile in both aspects. A roller coaster ride between laughing out loud and cringing with awful anticipation. Solondz ironically uses bright colors and cheerful music to discuss the dark subject of pedophilia and sexual dysfunction. The relationships between the three sisters ("I thought that was top secret") were particularly hilarious. While it seems at times to be overburdened, there is not one scene I can remember feeling unnecessary. I could hardly stand to watch at times, but could not turn away. Imagine laughing through the discomfort of the hand-scarring scene in "Fight Club" for 140 minutes, and you'll have an idea of what watching "Happiness" is like. This is a fantastic film for those who enjoy the strong emotions filmmaking can provide.

Rating:
Summary: Sensational
Review: Myth number1: You will love it or you will hate it and you'll know which within about 2 minutes.
An easy myth to verify, Myth 1 is false because it assumes that people know, and admit to themselves, what they want to see. Most people will feel disgusted many times during this movie. They will almost definitely have a moment where they accuse the director of merely spinning a blatant sensationalistic piece of trash with no meaning. But these thoughts are the building blocks of analysis, not the end results. Many people will decide that they are glad to have been taken into such a grim, disturbing place. This leads to...
Myth number 2: Only VERY "Liberal" people will like it.
Well, this myth is just plain self-defeating. Poeple enjoy movies like this because they deal with issues that most movies don't. And in a manner that is NOT condescending, artificially spruced-up, or limited to the politically correct. That's right PC can be a "conservative" trait as well. If there are two terms I'd use to describe Happiness they would be "open-minded" and "responsible".

Rating:
Summary: Ben Gazzara
Review: " Sit down. I said SIT DOWN! " One of the many memorable lines executed by Ben Gazzara. Ben Gazzara definitely stole the movie, especialy when he said "look things change...people change, whatever...I want out." Ben Gazzara got robbed of the oscar, he cant get a break. Ben Gazzara was told by Diane, " Dont feel guilty" and Ben Gazzara replies " I dont. I dont feel anything."
These words of Ben Gazzara echo in my head because like Ben Gazzara, I dont feel anything. Ben Gazzara was a good choice for Happiness because Ben Gazzara played a perfect old aged father. Ben Gazzara reminded me of my father who is not named Ben Gazzara, but also does not feel anything just like me and Ben Gazzara. Ben Gazzara was asked by his daughter "have you found someone?" Ben Gazzara replies quikly, " No. There is no one." I hope others appreciate Ben Gazzara as-well!
Ben Gazzara.

Rating:
Summary: eyes wide open
Review: I'm a 32 year old divorce, who recently found myself confronted with alot of questions about where to turn! So one day my friend Ben said the movie HAPPINESS might help me out with my problems.
Turns out after watching this, in my midlife confussion, I found certain images that my shrink pointed out were in fact a vision of a young boy being molested by an overselest uncle. thank you HAPPINESS for helping dig out these blocked out child memories and getting me back on my feet. Thank you Ben!!

Rating:
Summary: Not Human Unless You See This
Review: When I first saw this movie I was in my friend Pat's room and I was in utter awe. My brain escaped my skull and looked at me. We stared at each other and both mutterd " What the ...!"
To make a long story short this movie is seriously rad! Peep It! I said PEEP IT!! Fo' knowledge. This flick enlisted the help of some hard hitten' actors-Ben Gazzarra, John Lovitz, the Mom from Requiem For a Dream, the fat chick and hot chick from The Practice, so-on-and-so-forth. I could relate to the Psychiatrist and his obsessions. I saw this movie and I was like. " you know man, We all have our crosses to bare."
Please do your five senses a favor and listen to Charles Manson's Love and Terror Cult, then watch Happiness, then kill yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Highly Disturbing, But Stunningly Brilliant
Review: I will admit that I prepared myself for the worst going into this film because I knew that as a lover of film, I should see it, but still may not like it. I was wrong. This is a brilliant and corrosively funny movie. It was under the Comedy section in my video store, and while that is not entirely accurate, I don't know where else you would place it. It is a tale of hapless adults in search of, what else, happiness. These people may act like you and me, but behind closed doors, they hold terrible dark secrets, as many of us do, but would never tell. That's what makes this movie frightening; it could be your neighborhood and you don't know it. But writer-director Todd Solondz paints a sympathetic picture of these people, and that may be the element that offends people. However, this film is not done crudely, and Solondz does not really go for shock value; he's merely showing what life really is, and how even though some of these people are seriously disturbed, there's a sick humor in watching their pratfalls. It is indeed hard to explain the comedy in this to someone only familiar with the subject matter, but trust me, it's there. It is also dramatically powerfully and elegantly filmed. Solondz has already made himself a true and original voice in 90s cinema with only two major films under his belt (although "Storytelling" has also just been released). This film stunned me, shocked me, and struck me with its brilliance. Any film that can succeed comedically and dramatically with this type of heavy material is in my opinion, a remarkable film.

Rating:
Summary: REAL LIFE
Review: I had no idea what to expect of this film and was frankly a bit shocked by it. I had heard so much about its more controversial elements, but I had no idea it would be quite so hateful. This said, I did not hate the movie as a viewer at all. At times I was shocked by some of its more unsavoury storylines, but I was captivated by how the darker elements of human nature are so pervasive. We just do not always notice them in reality. This film examines those darker parts of humanity by exacerbating them and looking past the veneer of "pretty and perfect" nuclear families. Many people who watch this film WILL hate it. Many will be highly offended. Some will be perplexed and moved to thought. All the actors here give outstanding performances as people who lead seemingly normal lives but who have secrets and edges to their personalities which make them more... human. Sometimes these flaws and faults make them positively disgusting people. Philip Seymour Hoffman is excellent as a prank-phone-calling pervert with a whiny but monotone voice. He lusts after his neighbour, played with an icy touch by a self-absorbed Lara Flynn Boyle (the role does not seem much of a stretch for her). When Hoffman begins phoning Boyle, she insists they have to meet so he can do all the obscene things to her that he talks about doing in his prank phone calls. When they do, she immediately says, "This isn't working." Another tenant in their building, played manically well by Boyle's The Practice co-star Camryn Mannheim, lusts after Hoffman and comes to his door nightly to report minutiae about various other tenants in the building. Hoffman is blind to her feelings and rejects her. Until finally she confesses nonchalantly to having murdered their doorman. The film, with characters and scenes like these, can be at once horrifying and also heartbreaking. Meanwhile, Boyle's character has two sisters, one (played well by Jane Adams, whom we have seen in Frasier and in Wonder Boys) an aimless sort who cannot keep a job and cannot fall in love and even when she thinks she does, one bad things after another happens. The other sister is played by Cynthia Stevenson, who might best be remembered for playing a similar role in tv's short-lived Hope and Gloria (she was the irrepressible and always positive Hope). Her character believes she has the perfect, stable life with a psychologist husband, a wonderful son, and a nice house. Little does she know, and this is how depraved the characters in the film are, her husband is a pedophile, and he drugs one of his son's friends in order to molest him. By the end of the film, of course, all of these illusions fall apart. But the characters' lives go on, just like life does.

Rating:
Summary: Thank you Dr. Maplewood
Review: once again Todd Solondz has been able to find that happy medium of brutal truth served with emotion and unorthodox humour..just as he did with "welcome to the dollhouse" a personal favorite..... "Happiness" is a film where the story moves slow, the comedy is very black, and the emotions very real..the movie focuses on the depression or a group of characters who, in some way, are all connected.. and they are all in search of the same thing- Happiness..certainly worth adding to the dvd collection ..this movie achieves in making child molestation a humourous occasion, i didn't find this film offensive at all.. not even contraversial.. but be warned that you might

Rating:
Summary: One of my favourite movies of all times!
Review: This movie rocks! I've seen it 4 or 5 times - once in a theater, and then couple of times on tapes with friends (who's sick now, huh?). If you are not into black humor and/or are too squeamish, you should probably stay away from it.