I'd heard and read the reviews, seen most of the actors in other films, and even though I haven't yet seen WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE, heard a lot of praise for Todd Solondz. Now that I've finally seen this, I can understand what all the hype was about.
Many people will not get the point of this film; others still will refuse to, (and do, as I've read in a lot of the comments posted before mine.) Any film created to bring us a little closer to some of life's darker, harsher truths is going to be anything but popular with the majority, and it will always be guaranteed to polarize audiences, no matter how "open-minded" they are.
HAPPINESS now has caused me to reevaluate my own personal definition of what a "horror" film truly is. As a staunch fan of the genre, I have always understood and accepted our need for the Boogeyman in all his guises: Dracula, the Frankenstein monster, Freddy Krueger, the Ghostface Killer from SCREAM, the list goes on. We have always needed greater horrors that stir something in our psyches, to help us deal with the more real horrors that can be found in everyday life, down the street, on the front page of today's paper, or even in the house/apartment next-door.
That's what makes HAPPINESS a true horror film, closer actually to the Dutch thriller THE VANISHING than it is to AMERICAN BEAUTY. Even in its extreme over-the-top depictions of its pathetic character's scabrous existences, we are made uncomfortable by the one universal fact that will continue to cause Solondz to be called both a prince and a pariah: we all have something to hide.
In the quest for what we hope, we desire, we NEED to experience as happiness, we are sometimes prepared to say and do things we'd rather not talk about and we definitely wouldn't confess to anybody else. Whether or not we lose sight of the difference between right and wrong, good and evil in that quest depends on who we are, and how well we deal with the truths that come back to haunt us when we're lying awake at three in the morning...
But enough about the film's effect on me, personally. The cast delivers some of the most mind-boggling work of their careers, and in the case of Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Dylan Baker, both Golden Globe nominees for their performances here, one worries about the future of their careers, and whether they'll be hobbled by typecasting as mouth-breathing losers or fatherly pedophiles, so remarkably realistic are the portrayals.
Would I recommend repeated viewings? As a precursor to suicide, possibly. Would I recommend that it be seen at least once? Absolutely. If you want a reminder of what real horror is all about, you don't have to look at Bosnia, or Palestine, or Belfast, or even Columbine. If you could lift up just one corner of the sunny street where you live and see what the neighbors are hiding underneath the well-kept, manicured, white-washed veneer of their satisfied suburban lives, that one glimpse might start you screaming, and you'd never be able to stop.
Or maybe the darker truth is even closer than that...maybe it's right in your own backyard. And that's what HAPPINESS is trying to say. When you pass judgment on people in real life who are a lot like some of the characters here, is it really because of what you see in them? Or is it something you see in the mirror, that you'd rather not?
With BLUE VELVET, David Lynch showed us the scars underneath the smiling face of Small Town, U.S.A. With HAPPINESS, Todd Solondz puts those same scars underneath the lens of a microscope, and invites us to take a good, long look...
