Happiness [Region 2] | ![Happiness [Region 2]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51R6V9YB42L._SL500_.jpg)
| Director: Todd Solondz
Actors: Jane Adams, Jon Lovitz, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Dylan Baker, Lara Flynn Boyle
Category: DVD
This item is no longer available
Rating:  289 reviews
Format: Anamorphic, Full Screen, Ntsc
Languages: French (Unknown), English (Unknown), French (Subtitled)
Region: 2
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Running Time: 134 Minutes
EAN: 3357803049253
ASIN: B00004YRMP
Theatrical Release Date: October 16, 1998
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
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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| Customer Reviews: Read 284 more reviews...
3 stars out of 4 May 25, 2009
One-Line Film Reviews (Ann Arbor)
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.
 Just don't watch it April 29, 2009
Blue Moon
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
This film was gross, shocking, dark and uncomfortable. I really wish I'd never seen it. I can't even begin to understand why it gets such great reviews.
 interesting April 26, 2009
jon grife (maryland)
this was an interesting movie but not great. i don't think that i'd see it again. much of it is cliched and not believable and very stilted and cold. the human problems which were explored were very interesting but their portrayal was heartless and absurd. the movie could have been much more humane and better.
Dysfunctionality as art March 23, 2009
JfromJersey (Manalapan, NJ)
In HAPPINESS, everyone is either getting abused, or doing the abusing. Joy Jordan (Jane Adams), the main character if there is one, is the primary receptacle of abuse either in her obvious relationships with men, or her subtle relationships with her own family. She is a fledgling songwriter, who wistfully sings about a "happiness" that doesn't exist in director Todd Solondz' dysfunctional world. Other denizens of this world are her sister Trish (Cynthia Stevenson) who deludes herself into thinking she has a wonderful marriage and family, her other sister Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle) a self loathing and cynical writer, Trish's husband Bill (Dylan Baker) a psychiatrist and covert pedophile who drugs and rapes his son's friend and schoolmate, and one of his patients, Allen (Philip Seymour Hoffman) a shy neighbor of Helen's who fantasizes about brutally raping her and gets his rocks off making lewd phone calls. There are also Joy's parents (Ben Gazzara and Louise Lasser), and an overweight, psychotic tenant (Camryn Mannheim) in Helen and Allen's building..but I won't elaborate on them.
HAPPINESS is not a happy movie, although there is a load of very dark humor in it. Like Woody Allen, Todd Solondz uses film as an artistic medium to express neuroses, and exorcize personal demons, but where Woody's milieu is urban, Todd's is suburban, and where Woody won't cross certain lines in exploring mankind's dark nature, Todd has no reservation about crossing those lines and venturing into forbidden territory. With the exception of Larry Clark's work the topic of pedophilia has never been treated as openly and boldly as in HAPPINESS. Bill's final conversation with his son is totally unnerving and makes you squirm in your seat.
I will recommend this film, but with reservations. It is artfully done, well acted, and with enough sharp dialog and humor to keep you engaged for it's 2 plus hour length. However, it's viewpoint is too pessimistic for my taste, and Todd Solondz needed to do a better job filtering out what is funny, from what is truly offensive.
 Great movie February 13, 2009
hedwig007 (WI)
I've been waiting to see this movie for months. Well worth the wait. Great movie with great acting.
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