Happiness (1998)
Directed by Todd Solondz
The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.
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10 films that influenced Happiness
What critics say influenced Happiness
Happiness is an ensemble piece, much like Robert Altman's Nashville.
In true Altmanesque style, a 'la "Nashville" and "Short Cuts," "Happiness" interweaves several different stories together into a perfectly-woven tapestry that is admittedly quite ironic, since the title of the film is the farthest possible feeling away that any of the miserable characters presented here could be.
John Waters (director of Pink Flamingos and the recent Pecker) has lavished praise upon Solondz and Happiness.
There’s nothing about Andy’s pain or Joy’s shyness that goes beyond the comedy-of-discomfort of Albert Brooks’ first few films, or the grimmest Woody Allen — say, “Stardust Memories.”
Films like David Cronenberg 's Crash and David Lynch ’s Eraserhead and Blue Velvet have wedged our eyes open in the face of perversity.
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The film is also a bit like David Lynch's "Blue Velvet", as it takes a look at the (very) dark side of seemingly happy suburbia.
Happiness breaks through to haunted levels of erotic compulsion that place it closer to the hypnotic artistry of Blue Velvet.
Films like David Cronenberg 's Crash and David Lynch ’s Eraserhead and Blue Velvet have wedged our eyes open in the face of perversity.
Think of Altman's Short Cuts reimagined for the East Coast, or Neil La Bute's Your Friends and Neighbors with less smug distance.
In true Altmanesque style, a 'la "Nashville" and "Short Cuts," "Happiness" interweaves several different stories together into a perfectly-woven tapestry that is admittedly quite ironic, since the title of the film is the farthest possible feeling away that any of the miserable characters presented here could be.
Like Todd Haynes in “Safe” or Mike Leigh in “Naked,” he veers into a kind of subtle expressionism to ferret out deeper feelings about his characters, and ours.
Like Todd Haynes in “Safe” or Mike Leigh in “Naked,” he veers into a kind of subtle expressionism to ferret out deeper feelings about his characters, and ours.
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Rather than focusing on a single character, Happiness is an ensemble piece: Bill ( Dylan Baker ) plays a psychologist; his wife, Trish ( Cynthia Stevenson of The Player ) is a content homemaker raising their three children in the New Jersey suburbs.
Solondz's last film, Welcome to the Dollhouse (1996), was also a comedy of desperation, but an elegantly small-scale one.
Dropped by its intended distributor (who scored a considerable success with Solondz’s previous film, “Welcome to the Dollhouse”), the film has been released without a rating by a unique consortium brought together expressly for this purpose.
Anyone who saw Todd Solondz's breakthrough feature film, Welcome to the Dollhouse, has the kernel of an idea about what to expect from the director's latest effort, the ironically-titled Happiness.
This is only the second film of Todd Solondz ("Welcome to the Dollhouse" was his debut), but you can already tell that the man's gifted.
It was no fluke that Mr. Solondz's last film, "Welcome to the Dollhouse", was such a brutally honest examination of adolescence.
Solondz, who made the low-budget Sundance winner "Welcome to the Dollhouse," relentlessly attacks the notion of a normal life.