Happiness

Rating:
Summary: Awful
Review: This film is a must-see for anyone seeking an illustration of Alfred Hitchcock's observation that actors are cattle. You just sit there for two hours agog, wondering what in the world talented performers are doing in a film such as this. You ask yourself Is there no line an actor will draw when offered a role? It really is as though the entire cast have been conditioned not to detect obscenity before walking onto the set.

I am really loath to lower myself to Todd Solonz's level by discussing the (literally) masturbatory visuals and dialogue, but suffice to say that the movie is indeed explicit to the point of repulsion, and therefore, by modern American artistic standards, must be profound and thought-provoking. You find the sight of a man using his own natural glue to stick postcards to his bedroom wall repulsive? Well, you musn't be thinking hard enough about the deep message of the movie. You're turned off by the sight of a father abusing himself in the back seat of a car while flicking through a children's comic? Well then you musn't be letting the movie challenge your assumptions about yada yada yada ...

It needs to be said plainly. American taste is rapidly descending into a quagmire where the intellectual knee-jerk reaction to obscenity is to immediately, unthinkingly mistake it for profundity. Champions of freedom of expression have sought to make this freedom boundless, such that even what is universally acknowledged to be appalling is given voice, that the demon of censorship may never get a toe-hold. But by now the very act of pushing the envelope of bad taste has itself become a mark of artistic merit, and works that are self-evidently repulsive are considered great for no other reason than that they supposedly reaffirm the sheer breadth of America's freedom of expression.

The point made by almost every advocate of freedom of speech, from Jefferson to Mill, is that suppression of that freedom may exclude us from coming into contact with important ideas. Thus even bad ideas should be given a forum. This is true enough. But that does not mean that the broader the leeway for expression, the more we should jettison our taste and judgement. In fact, the opposite is true: when there is no external quality control, then our own taste and discernment needs to be at its sharpest, to winnow the wheat from the chaff. Happiness clearly crosses a threshold of taste, and when movies such as this are well-received, we are in trouble. But that must just be the repressed prude in me talking. You know - that bad person who doesn't sit back and pensively stroke his chin at the sight of someone masturbating.

When Monsters from the Moon, one of the worst sci-fi B-movies of the 50s was released, one reviewer commented: 'Everyone involved with this film deserves censure.' Likewise, I think any normal person would be embarrassed to have even made the coffee on the set of a film like Happiness.

Rating:
Summary: Joy Carries It
Review: It's strange, really, that such a lengthy and involved film with an ensemble cast can rest so comfortably on a single character. It does. The rest of the film's elements succeed or don't succeed to various degrees, but the story of Joy (played by Jane Adams) makes the movie such a wonder.
Joy is beautiful, and not just for being exceptionally easy on the eyes. She's warm, loving, and kind, and wants to do something selfless with her life. She's a great woman.
And naturally, almost everybody she knows treats her like dirt. I'm not going to describe the various incidents, I'll just say that they are very... cutting.
There's a scene towards the very beginning of the film that is one of the most powerful that I have ever seen. Joy is sitting in her cubicle at work, and she gets a couple of phone calls. Joy isn't working in a Victorian factory, or on a plantation, or in a POW camp or any of the other hellholes humanity has experienced. In a purely material sense, she's blessed. And yet in this scene you see that her despair and alienation (and the dehumanization of her working environment) are every bit as unpleasant and spirit-destroying as possible. It's very gripping stuff.
I don't mean to shortchange the rest of the film, only to let you in on what makes it so moving to me.

Rating:
Summary: Pointless
Review: I really liked Welcome to the Dollhouse, so I was expecting much more from this movie. The characters are so pathetic, it is painful to watch. However, there is no real plot to thie movie, beyond "life sucks." Imagine if the whole point to the movie was "life is great" and showed happy people. It wouldn't be considered a masterpiece, it just would be considred pointless and trite. Also, those conversations between Bill and Billy never would have happened, they were just put in there for shock value.
The one thing I liked about the movie was Bill's wife was so condescending towards Joy it kind of makes me glad her husband was so messed up.

Rating:
Summary: Comedy?
Review: If you consider this to be a comedy, then go rent "SchlinderÂ's list", youÂ'll laugh your lungs out!
Now, seriously, I know that the director of this movie always felt alienated in his life -he said it in an interview- and through his films examines all the dreadful and sad things about life. Well, this is just not very pleasant stuff for me too watch on films. I do like dramaÂ's and dark comedies, but this guy just shows all the pathetic, sick and horribles things in life, with no redemption whatsoever; so be smart, and be happy, and donÂ't waste your time in watching "sadness".

Rating:
Summary: Wow.
Review: I was hesitant to give this five stars, as it is awfully difficult for many people to handle. On the other hand, if you are a person who cares, you will find this movie incredible. It is certainly controversial, whatever that means. You will stare at disbelief at your screen, and will most likely not turn the television off until you are well into the credits and have regained use of your senses. The colors and music match incredibly well to the twisted contrast that this film is. Watch this film if you dare. You won't be sorry.

Rating:
Summary: a fine film
Review: a brilliant film, another great acomplishment from tod solondz, director of welcome to teh doll house, and the most recent: storytelling.... solondz is one of my idols along with lynch and richard linklater... you can see otehr reveiws for this movie, but for thoughs whom lack intalect. part of this films brilliance is its move to go where other filmmakers coward out, in showing the darker side of the suburbia. and it flows through charactors iterelating them in a brilliant flow of cinima...

if you aprieciate art, and have a taste for non linear filming, this is a must see.

...

Rating:
Summary: Look elsewhere...
Review: I can't believe I wasted not only my hard earned money, but my precious time watching this DVD.
So many people have referred to it as "brilliant", "funny", and "artistic". It is none of the above. The characters in this movie are sad, boring, lonely, sick, and perverted. I made the mistake of pausing the movie on many occasions just to get a break from it. Unfortunately, that only made the movie seem three times longer than it really was.
Please don't make the same mistake I did by buying/watching this mess.

Rating:
Summary: Repellent.
Review: This is one of the few movies that makes me feel almost conservative (banish the thought). I have an open mind and love cinema that is truly "challenging", as another reviewer put it, and I like being shocked-- especially when it's for a good purpose, such as making you think. I've liked several of the movies that have a bunch of these actors in them, such as Magnolia, and to some extent Boogie Nights, which I didn't quite like but did admire. But "Happiness" just struck me as being disgusting. It's shocking just for the sake of being shocking. I'm sure it might resonate with some people who have had truly screwed-up lives (maybe it could even help them in some way)-- personally I feel too emotionally stable to be able to relate to it. It also probably appeals to people who like REALLY depressing movies--"Long Day's Journey Into Night", for example-- which consist basically of people being unspeakably horrible to each other. I can deal with people being horrible to each other in a movie, of course, but when that's the essence of the plot with no real reason attached to it, I would rather not endure it for two+ hours.
The thought that kept occurring to me as I watched it is that I would die before I would let my mother watch even a minute of it! I found it incredibly disturbing that children were used in this film and had to know generally what their scenes were about-- the plot involves (among many other things) a child raping another child, including forced oral sex. If you think the point of cinema is simply to disturb, no matter who it hurts, then you probably won't be too troubled by this. Personally I didn't find this movie "challenging"-- just in-your-face repulsive, stupid, and UGLY in every sense of the word. Not to mention a total waste of considerable acting talent.

Rating:
Summary: THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE MADE THIS MOVIE
Review: THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE MADE THIS MOVIE

Rating:
Summary: wow
Review: wow, what a great movie. i love comedies, and this has got to be the darkest of comedies. if you liked that american psycho movie or any kind of movie where you had to actually get the joke and hate these stupid tim allen and, to a more recent extent, ben stiller movies, give this one a shot. i loved it. i guess in summary its kind of like ghost world, another good one, in that it follows a group of people in their own little lives as they search for something that makes them happy.