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Happiness (1998)
A profound, perspective-altering and blackly hilarious examination of the human condition
Happiness strips reality bare. It shows us how the world really is, shocking us out of any cosy, bigoted notions about life and people which we might have.
I won't go into the plot in detail, because that would be going over what you already know for those who have seen it, and spoiling it for those who haven't. Let's just say it follows the three Jordan sisters of New Jersey; Trish, whose psychiatrist husband Bill is secretly a paedophile and budding child rapist; Helen, who is being stalked by the lonely, sex-obsessed Allen; and Joy, who gets a job teaching newly arrived immigrants in NYC, and starts an affair with one of them, only for him to emerge as a thief who is only after her money. There's also the sisters' parents, Lenny and Mona, who have retired to Florida and are now splitting up after decades of marriage.
The theme of Happiness ostensibly appears to be the idea that middle-class, suburban society is not what it seems; there is perversion lurking behind every door, and the perfect family man living next door to you could in fact be a paedophile and a rapist. As Bill says to Joe Grasso at one point in the film, "appearances can be deceptive." This is doubtless a genuine theme which Solondz wanted to express, but I feel that it goes deeper than this.
I think what Solondz was really trying to do in Happiness was to tear down our ideas about morality. In Happiness, people are shown as they really are, not divided off into the black and white realms of good and evil, as bigots tend to see people. Happiness twists normal ideas of good and bad beyond recognition. The most obvious example would be the character of Bill - he is a paedophile, but is shown not to be a monster but a caring father who is deeply tormented by his own urges. But the character of Allen is another good example - he may immediately strike us as a pervert, but he turns out to have a caring side, as shown when he gives Kristina a tissue and offers to take her out. Kristina is obsessed with Allen and is stalking him, just as Allen is himself stalking Helen - by showing a stalker WITH a stalker, Solondz shows us the relativity of morality, and one woman's stalker is another woman's stalking victim. The real world is not a black and white one of evil stalkers and good victims - it is much more complex, composed of subtle shades of grey. Kristina goes on to reveal to Allen that she killed Pedro, the doorman who raped her. When she asks Allen if they can still be friends, Allen says "I guess, yeah, I mean everyone has their, you know, their pluses and minuses." This reiterates the same theme of moral relativism - the world is not neatly divided into camps of good and evil, we're all on the same scale, and the most evil person in the world has good in them, just as the most good person in the world has evil in them.
Another theme in Happiness is that of determinism - the idea that people do not choose their actions, and they cannot therefore be held morally responsible for them. Confessing his paedophilia to his son Billy, Bill explains his actions by saying "I couldn't help myself", a line that has already be spoken by Kristina. And is it me, or does Billy look like a young Allen? Billy and Allen are also both obsessed with masturbating. Is Solondz saying that Billy has been turned into a pervert like Allen by the trauma of discovering his father's paedophilia? Whether determinism is right or wrong, it is undeniable that people are often forced into unpleasant situations by prior circumstances - so it is hard to impose judgement on them.
In Happiness, it in fact becomes IMPOSSIBLE to impose judgement on ANYONE. What Happiness ultimately presents to us is a total moral nihilism - good and bad do not exist, there is only happiness and (more often) suffering. It's not that there is perversion lurking behind every door, it's that there ARE no perverts. "Normality" and "perversion", "good" and "bad", do not refer to anything at all. Whether Solondz is correct about that or not, it is certainly a view of the world to which I can relate.
Now, it may be possible to criticise Happiness as being too pessimistic, as offering no solutions to the problems of life which it highlights, but the fact is that there often ARE no solutions. Happiness is a film which, above all, remains true to reality, and in reality, there are often no solutions to the great deal of suffering in life. So why watch it? The answer is that Happiness is, against all the odds, not a depressing film. Despite the unpleasant events with which it deals, Solondz makes it a very funny and humane film. I actually find it quite a therapeutic film to watch when I am down, in that it lays bare the problems of life and changes my perspective on them, helps me take a more philosophical attitude to things and a less judgemental attitude to other people. By dealing with the problems of life so candidly, the film Happiness is actually one of the few things that has come out of a human mind which actually transcends those problems. It is like an island of humour and wisdom in a world full of suffering and madness. Solondz said the following about his film Welcome to the Dollhouse, but it could apply equally well to Happiness: "The film is a comedy because that is the only way I know how to deal with excruciating torment, and I find something both funny and poignant in the struggle to endure humiliation."