Happiness (8/10)
12th June 1999: Cineworld, Bristol
Major plot points revealed.
Happiness, written and directed by Todd Solondz, won the International Critics' Prize at Cannes last year. It is an extremely frank and disturbing look at the emotional horror stories that exist under the surface of the lives of several apparently everyday American suburbanites. The characters' lives intersect in various ways, as if to suggest that the film has not just chosen a few freaks to examine, but that the awfulness of what goes on in the film is quite normal.
The interweaving stories show the ways in which the characters seek happiness and uniformly fail. These include a woman's doomed romances, an obscene phone caller who stumbles into a pathetic relationship with an overweight and lonely neighbour, the breakdown of a late middle-aged couple's marriage, an 11-year old boy's first experiments with masturbation and, most unsettling of all, the boy's father's appalling sexual abuse of two of his son's friends. It is this aspect of the film that is truly shocking. The son, embarrassed and confused about his stirring sexuality, goes to his father for advice. The father's calm but frank comments can be seen either as a model of open and supportive parenting, or as an attempt at a gross seduction. The scenes in which the father plots his assaults are uncomfortable enough to watch, but the scene in which he admits to his son what he has done, and describes it with brutal candour, is almost unbearable. Despite the monstrous things this paedophile does, he is not portrayed as a monster, but rather as a pathetic character whom we can almost feel some sympathy for. It is this that has provoked some to call the film morally repugnant.
The other story lines are hardly light-hearted, and there is a rape and murder thrown in for good measure, but there is nevertheless a strange humour, fuelled by embarrassment, running through much of the film. The cast is uniformly excellent, although Dylan Baker deserves special mention for his portrayal of the paedophile father.
I was not looking forward to seeing Happiness, but felt it was a film I had to see. I can't say I enjoyed it very much, but it is as emotionally involving and challenging as cinema can get.
--
Gary Jones
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