Happiness

Happiness
by Todd Solondz

Happiness
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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Dylan Baker, Jane Adams, Jon Lovitz, Lara Flynn Boyle, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Director: Todd Solondz
Brand: LION'S GATE ENTERTAINMENT
Cinematographer: Maryse Alberti
Writer: Todd Solondz
Producer: Christine Vachon
Producer: David Linde
Producer: James Schamus
Producer: Pamela Koffler
Producer: Ted Hope
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 1.85:1
Running Time: 134 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-04-27
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Lions Gate

Movie Reviews of Happiness

Movie Review: 3 stars out of 4
Summary: 4 Stars

The Bottom Line:

A polarizing film about suburbia, pedophilia, relationships, and a lot more that can't be easily categorized, Happiness is neither a crowd-pleasing movie nor an immaculately-constructed one, but it's not exploitative either and I guarentee you that you'll think about it a long time after you watch it.

Summary of Happiness

When a young woman (Jane Adams) rejects her current overweight suitor (Jon Lovitz) in a restaurant he unexpectedly places a curse on her. The film then moves on to her sisters. One (Cynthia Stevenson) is a happily married woman with a psychiatrist husband (Dylan Baker) and three kids. Unfortunately the husband develops an unnatural fascination for his 11 year old sons male classmates fantasizes about mass killing in a park and masturbates to teen magazines. One of his patients (Philip Seymour Hoffman) has an unrequited fascination for the third sister (Lara Flynn Boyle). Meanwhile the apparently stable 40 year marriage of the sisters parents (Ben Gazzara Louise Lasser) suddenly unravels when he decides he has had enough and wants to live a hermits life in Florida. Obviously the whole movie is slightly warped in its viewpoint and certainly presents abnormal relationships among all of its parties. System Requirements:Directed by Todd Solondz Writing credits Todd Solondz Cast overview first billed only: Jane Adams (II) Jon Lovitz Philip Seymour Hoffman Dylan Baker Lara Flynn Boyle Justin Elvin Cynthia Stevenson Lila Glantzman-Leib Gerry Becker Rufus Read Louise Lasser Ben Gazzara Camryn Manheim Arthur J. Nascarella Molly Shannon Also Known As: Todd Solondzs Untitled (1997) (USA: working title) Runtime: 134 Color: Color (DuArt) Sound Mix: Dolby Certification: France:-12 / Italy:VM18 / Norway:15 / Sweden:15 Format: DVD MOVIE Genre:?COMEDY Rating:? UPC:?031398702337
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

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