Hand in Hand mit dem Tod

I saw HAPPY NOW on BBC2 on Saturday March 13th. I just stumbled upon it. I had never heard of it before. The fact that it was set in Wales caught my attention initially. Within minutes, I found myself totally gripped by the film. It was such a great story and was very well written and acted, by a very impressive cast. The cinematography was absolutely breathtaking. It really was a feast for the eyes. I also really enjoyed the score. It's such a shame that the film appears not to have had a UK release and also doesn't appear to be available on DVD. How can this be, when so many really lousy UK films get released each year? I thoroughly recommend this film. It really is a little-known gem.

The picture is set in a little town from North Wales, where a vagrant named Tin man(Om Puri) is wrongly framed of murdering. Years later, a newcomer local policeman(Ioan Gruffud) investigates the deeds .When appears a local woman named Tina Trent(Susan Lynch) just returned, along with her daughter(Emmy Rossum) in the little place. The daughter bears a remarkable resemblance with the disappeared girl. As suspects are Marcus(Paddy Considine)and his friend(Richard Coyle). The policeman is helped by the local barber(Robert Pugh), killing girl's father, and the Tin man.

This agreeable movie displays suspense, thrills, Welsh costumes, mystery and enjoyable performances. Main casting is frankly well, with actors today making American career, such as Ioan Gruffud (Arthur) as intelligent local policeman, Emmy Rossum(Phantom of Opera) in a double role as shy adolescent and Susan Lynch as attractive mother. Furthermore, excellent secondary cast as the nasties Paddy Considine and Richard Coyle . Glamorous cinematography by Richard Greatex(Flawless, Detonator,Chaos, A knight's tale). Atmospheric musical score by Dario Marianelli(V for vendetta, Brothers Grimm, Shooting dogs, Pride and prejudice). The motion picture is well directed by Philippe Cousins in his first and only movie, though previously won a Bafta prize for TV. Rating : Acceptable and passable.

Jennifer is a young girl who wins the beauty contest in her local town. That night she runs out of petrol and a kindly tramp goes to get help. While away two young men start bothering Jen and kill her by accident. They take the body and frame the tramp - who gets life. 14 years later Nicky is brought to the village by her mother and startles the locals by being the spitting image of Nicky (despite being born the year after her death).

I watched this as I always believe in giving a chance to British films - no matter how poorly they were delivered or received. I didn't know much about the film and came to it with no real expectations or preconceptions. The plot seems to be want to be a quirky paranormal mystery of sorts but it is only slightly successful. As a mystery it really needed to have more emotion to it; threads that had potential were poorly dealt with; although the film does quite well towards the end generally it isn't really good enough to hold it all together.

The lack of character is another big fault - the film tries too hard to have side characters who are quirky and weird, and neglects to give the main characters the reality and emotional buy-in that I needed to be able to care. It has been said before, but it does seem to be trying to turn the village into a sort of Welsh Twin Peaks. Even the thread that would have been easiest to draw human drama out of (Tin Man's freedom) is not done very well and the pain it causes is only hinted at. The cast are sort of left drifting without the scripted characters to work with. Rossum is very cute but doesn't seem to know what to do with herself. Considine hams up to no great effect even if Coyle shows a good range. Pugh and Puri are both good actors and their meetings should have been much better, as it is neither is that well served.

Overall this is worth watching but really it doesn't work well enough to justify seeing again. At it's core is an interesting story but one that it fails to do anything interesting with. It constantly suggests more interesting threads that it doesn't follow and comes off as self-consciously quirky and dark - to the detriment of the characters, story and film as a whole.

Writer Belinda Bauer and director Philippa Cousins have turned out a stylish looking Welsh movie that doesn't know if it wants to be a sick black comedy or a semi-serious psycho based murder drama. It clearly wants to be an Alfred Hitchcock copycat film that's too obvious for any success in either genre.

Those with a yen for bizarre and nasty characters or gross situations will find this somehow agreeable but it flounders in typical, modern BFI style and ends up sinking itself in tastelessness.

Best attributes come via the good looking cinematography by Welsh born Richard Greatrex and an OK cast. Otherwise it's another cold and soulless modern wannabe failed 'classic'.

I also stumbled across this film on BBC2 by accident. Why wasn't it promoted more by the Beeb? Do pull your finger out, BBC!

It's not every night that a really great film comes along and it's also made in Britain too. I decided to watched this film because it was set in Wales and I'm half Welsh myself. All British films really need to be promoted more and given a better slot in the scheduling on terrestrial TV. Not everyone has cable you know!

I really loved the dark humour of this movie. All the acting was superb but I was particularly struck by Paddy Considine. He's certainly someone to watch. A very edgy performance. And he's cute as well!