Happiness, 1998.
Directed by Todd Solondz.
Starring Jane Adams, Elizabeth Ashley, Dylan Baker, Lara Flynn Boyle, Ben Gazzara, Jared Harris, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Louise Lasser, Jon Lovitz, Camryn Manheim, Rufus Read, and Cynthia Stevenson.
SYNOPSIS:
Todd Solondz’s 1998 movie Happiness, which takes discomfort to an extreme, makes its 4K Ultra HD debut courtesy of Criterion. Unfortunately, there aren’t a ton of bonus features found here, but what’s included is worth watching, and you get the added bonus of Criterion’s typical printed material. The remastered image quality is, of course, excellent.
When I was in college, I took a creative writing class. One of the students, likely inspired by Bret Easton Ellis’s novel Less Than Zero (this was just a few years after the novel and the movie adaptation came out), wrote a story about some aimless college students behaving in debauched ways.
When he was done reading his story out loud, one of the other students began his critique with “I don’t condone censorship, but…” and, of course, promptly proposed censorship of that story. Most of the students (me included), as well as the professor, strongly disagreed.
My point is that even if a story makes someone uncomfortable, it has a right to exist. No one has to engage with it if they don’t want to, and people who disagree with its premise can use their right to say so. (This is very different from a company in the private sector deciding what it will and won’t allow on its platform or service.)
Which brings me to Todd Solondz’s Happiness, out now on 4K Ultra HD courtesy of Criterion. It was the follow-up to his acerbic Welcome to the Dollhouse, but it never quite sat right with me. Happiness isn’t awful, but it’s not great, either.
My main concern with it is how it rides that razor edge of discomfort, to the point that it’s too much for me at times. As much as I love many big-budget box office hits, I also appreciate filmmakers who cut against the grain, and Todd Solondz is one of them, but I feel like Happiness indulges in discomfort for discomfort’s sake. It’s like someone dared him to really push that envelope.
If the movie works for you, great. Like I said a few paragraphs ago, a story like this has the right to exist. Engage with it or don’t engage with it, and feel free to make your feelings on it known.
If you haven’t seen Happiness, it’s an ensemble film about a group of fucked-up characters trying to make their way through life while intersecting with each other in various ways.
We have the three Jordan sisters, the oldest of whom (Cynthia Stevenson) is married to a psychiatrist, Bill (Dylan Baker), who is a pedophile. The middle sister, Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle), is a successful author who finds intrigue in the pornographic phone calls made by Allen (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who is one of Bill’s patients.
The youngest daughter, Joy (Jane Adams), feels unfulfilled in life and breaks up with her boyfriend, Andy (Jon Lovitz), who goes on to kill himself. She leaves her job in telephone sales to teach at an immigrant education center, but she gets mixed up with a Russian named Vlad (Jared Harris) who’s up to no good.
Meanwhile, the sisters’ parents are going through a divorce because their father, Lenny (Ben Gazzara), says he wants to be alone, but he ends up in a relationship with another woman in their retirement community in Florida.
The group of characters intersect each other in various ways, and there’s a build-up to a climax that’s literally about a climax, but, like I said, it just doesn’t work for me in the end.
If you’re a fan, though, you’ll appreciate the fact that the movie was remastered for this edition and looks excellent. It’s not necessarily the kind of movie where picture quality is a huge deal, but, hey, it’s nice to get a theatrical presentation in our homes these days.
The 4K Ultra HD disc only houses the movie, I’m sure to maximize the bit rate, while the Blu-ray contains a few scant bonus features. The main one is a great 41-minute discussion between Solondz and fellow filmmaker Charlotte Wells that covers not just Happiness but indie cinema in general. It’s a nice conversation, rather than a by-the-numbers interview.
The other extra is a 14-minute interview with Dylan Baker about his character, who is, of course, a horrifically awful person and was a challenge to portray. The theatrical trailer rounds out the platter.
Criterion’s obligatory booklet for this one includes an essay by novelist and screenwriter Bruce Wagner.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
