“Happiness”, Where are you? – Oh, you are RIGHT HERE!!!
The H-Bomb: There are very few films that I can think of that left an impression on me the way Todd Solondz’s “Happiness” did back when I first saw it many years ago. With its assortment of freakish, malcontent misanthropes, some with more issues than others, it was a funny, disgusting, shocking, and poignant experience unlike any other. It went into dark, taboo places that few films dared, yet somehow managed to be highly entertaining despite that. The scene where the young boy asks his pedophile father if he would ever molest him is unforgettable, and the father’s answer to that question is a whole new kind of fucked up.
As far as I’m concerned, “Happiness” is Solondz’s finest hour as a filmmaker and an absolute masterpiece… and it absolutely did not need a sequel. But alas, we got one, from Mr. Solondz himself. The fact that Solondz was the one resurrecting these characters did give me some hope… though unfortunately, hope is a four letter word, and frankly, he really should have left well enough alone.
Like its predecessor, “Life During Wartime” centers around three sisters; depressed dreamer Joy (Shirley Henderson), insecure writer Helen (Ally Sheedy), prim ‘n proper suburban mom Trish (Allison Janney), and the various oddballs in their orbit. Joy is now married to Allen (Michael Kenneth Williams), the obscene calling fetishist who continues to struggle with his… problem(s). Joy still clings on to the vague dream of becoming a musician, but for the time being, she’s content with counseling ex-cons.
Trish, meanwhile, is living in Florida and dating Harvey (Michael Lerner), a nice, middle aged Jewish man. They bond over their inability to talk about their sex lives and their shared desire to be buried in Israel. Trish’s oldest son, Billy (Chris Marquette), is now in college, and still trying to cope with the fact that his dad once re-assured him that he would “only jerk off” to him. Her younger son, Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder), is about to become a man in the Jewish sense (Solondz, for no particular reason, decided to amp up the “Jewishness” of this family this time around), and has no idea that his father, Bill (Ciaran Hinds), who he has been told is dead, is a pedophile. Except Bill is not dead. In actuality, he has just been released from prison, and is now trying to track down Billy, who he hasn’t seen since being incarcerated over a decade ago.
Helen is now in L.A. making a profitable but artistically unfulfilling living as a screenwriter. She’s about a million times more neurotic than in the last picture and still considers herself to be a no talent hack, but… well, to be honest, her appearance in this film is relatively brief, and everything involving her is of little importance, so never mind.
What is important about “Life During Wartime”? Not a whole lot, really. In this part sequel, part rehash of “Happiness”, Solondz brings back a number of the major characters (all played by new actors) and basically seems to set them forth on the same journey of searching for… um… happiness. Only this time, that journey isn’t nearly as interesting. The ensemble of weirdo losers is on hand, as is the biting, satirical sense of humor, as well as the subversive themes. But while “Happiness” captivated me and made me care about these people, “Life During Wartime” failed to do either.
One problem “Life During Wartime” has is that in the first film, the characters seemed, for the most part, like actual people. This time, they act and sound like broadly drawn caricatures. The fucking pedophile aside, nobody comes across as anything even resembling a human being. If we heard real people saying some of the shit that the characters in this flick spew out, we’d be lining up to take turns smacking the stupid out of them. Seriously, would a mother really tell her twelve year old son how her new boyfriend makes her “wet” by rubbing her elbows? Give me a fuckin’ break!
Solondz’s ultimate theme for this piece, redemption, is muddled all to hell with pretentious crap like, “Should we forgive and forget? Or should we forgive but not forget? Or, should we not forgive but forget.” The fact that it’s the twelve year old Timmy farting this Philosophy 101 gibber-jabber out of his mouth makes it even more laughable. A couple of these attempts at redemption, such as the confrontation between pedo-dad and his son, or Joy being haunted by the ghost of her dead ex-boyfriend Andy (Pee Wee Herman), could have been effective had Solondz brought back the original actors to reprise these roles. But since all the faces are new, whatever weight or catharsis these scenes would have had is lost… or at least considerably diminished.
The decision to recast all the roles was a calculated one by Solondz, operating under the logic that people change over time, sometimes to the point of becoming someone else entirely. I certainly get what Solondz was going for, I just don’t think it worked. With two notable exceptions, most of the cast members are downgrades from their counterparts in “Happiness”. As Joy, Henderson is far less appealing than Jane Adams. Instead of being sweet and soulful, she comes off as an obnoxious, spastic flake.
The straight laced housewife Trish was annoying before, but in the form of Janney, she is truly insufferable, and that she has the most screen-time is fatal to the film. As for Snyder, I know it’s not nice to pick on child actors, but Goddamn! Every time this little shit opened his mouth, I was praying he’d either be struck in the head by a stray bullet, or someone would drop a piano on him. Williams is okay as the prank calling masturbator, Allen, but he’s underused, and Philip Seymour Hoffman (the original Allen) he is not.
Hinds, a very solid thespian, is a perfectly capable sub for Dylan Baker as the ex-shrink/kiddie diddler, but for most of his scenes he’s skulking around, alone and silent, thus he’s under-utilized as well. Also, Baker looked like a regular, all-American dad, which is what made him so chilling. Hinds, on the other hand, is brooding and even a little scary looking, so he’s not as effective. Nevertheless, he gives the film its best performance.
Pee Wee Herman, stepping out of the Playhouse and into Jon Lovitz’s shoes, is also very good as the ghost of Andy, with the actor’s own personal history adding some shading to the character, which is a good thing, since the script sure as hell didn’t. Charlotte Rampling contributes a cameo as a bitter old woman who has a one night stand with Bill. She probably did a fine job, but I can’t really say for sure, because I couldn’t stop staring at that ugly mop on her head.
Overall, “Life During Wartime” is another example of a belated sequel that’s just completely gratuitous. Solondz brought back the old characters, but he couldn’t think of anyplace new to take them. This was made all the more apparent in the number of instances where he mirrored scenes from the original (the opening dinner date, Joy playing her guitar, a key suicide, among others). The whole redemption angle be damned, the story of these characters was finished in the excellent, stand alone movie that is “Happiness”, and “Life During Wartime” is about as pointless and unworthy a follow up as one can imagine. The power and resonance of “Happiness” are gone, and fans of that fantastic film are better off leaving this one unseen.
