HAPPINESS (74) (second viewing: 71)

Directed by: Todd Solondz

Starring: Jane Adams, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Dylan Baker, Lara Flynn Boyle

The Pitch: Three New Jersey sisters search for happiness in a world of rape, abuse, murder and pedophilia.

Theo Sez: No surprise that masturbation should be a recurring motif in this thoroughly self-involved movie, which takes place entirely in its creator's head : certainly, anyone who thinks this lurid freakshow has anything to do with real life is probably something of a freakshow themselves. It says exactly nothing about social dysfunction or American society, but lots of powerful and unsettling things about the state of Solondz's mind - on this evidence a cesspool of self-loathing where the weak and ugly get relentlessly dumped on, and geeks must learn to stick with their own kind rather than lusting after princesses. What's unforgettable about it (much like DECONSTRUCTING HARRY last year) is the angst and conflict pervading every frame, the abject guilt behind its feelbad sensationalism : to say, as e.g. "Film Comment" does, that Solondz "uses" shock tactics, comparing the procession of weirdos to the perpetual-climax structure of ARMAGEDDON and Co., isn't merely unoriginal but also inadequate, over-simplifying the film's highly ambivalent method - it's like dismissing someone's cries of self-loathing by saying they're only doing it for the masochistic pleasure of torturing themselves, not realising they in fact despise themselves even more for getting such pleasure (people hate themselves for hating themselves, just as Solondz loathes the self-loathing expressed in his characters). What's astonishing, for instance, about the climactic confession isn't that it comes this close to finding something genuinely moving in a monstrous conversation between pedophile Dad and confused young son, but that it wilfully short-circuits the emotional charge ("I'd jerk off instead") at the last moment, refusing us (and itself) any love at all, even (and especially) the twisted, dysfunctional kind that would allow us to 'close' the characters while remaining smug and hip : calling Solondz a manipulator misunderstands the film's sour, self-destructive tone - it doesn't so much "use" its characters' misery as wallow in it, then flagellate itself for wallowing. The ending, the little boy's relief at discovering he is indeed "normal", has a terrible sense of yearning (it's like the reverse of FREAKS - the freaks let the woman go, and congratulate her on not being "one of them") that's pathetic and harrowing and incredibly sad ; the film's universe (and it is a universe, the epic quality being its chief improvement over WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE), full of misanthropic detail and expressed in bald, unbeautiful compositions, is like a nightmare, or the throb of a headache - you totter home, and it takes days to recover. It's a slow, arid, overlong, somewhat crude movie ; also a haunting, disturbing and - unfortunately - totally sincere one. [Second viewing, December 2015: Not sure I agree with Younger Me, who seems to value the film mostly for expressing a particular sensibility - maybe because Solondz's particular sensibility has calcified into schtick in the years since. Yet the film remains powerful for the way it locates everyday sicknesses like frustration and loneliness (especially loneliness) within larger sicknesses, esp. in the pedophile-dad section which is still unique and disturbing; also works as a twisted joke - from the wicked parody of father/son man-to-man talks to Jane Adams' gloriously plucky (or oblivious) heroine as she constantly tries to be nice and gets abused by absolutely everyone - but there is something heartfelt behind the joke. Why am I not surprised that Rufus Read never - or hardly ever - acted again? Traumatised much?]