Life During Wartime

"Happiness" was a funny yet very disturbing film. It's a very good film but one I can't see too often since some scenes are too weird. I wanted to see the follow up to that film, hoping it would be as funny, sad and chilling. "Life during Wartime" is quite weak. Having Charlotte Rampling in a small part did not help. The story took a long time to get going and then it was over too soon without creating any interest in the characters nor the storyline.

All the actors in the new film were much paler than the ones playing the same parts in "Happiness". The only appealing one was Shirley Henderson playing Joy (even if I missed Jane Adams dearly). The one playing Trish was nowhere near as good as the original actress, but the part was not as funny either.

Why make a follow up movie without the original cast? It would have been great to see them having aged like their characters. I suppose the actors from Happiness didn't like the script for "Life during Wartime"!

Not being acquainted with Todd Solondz before now, I found myself comparing "Life During Wartime" at an advance screening tonight to the Cohen brothers, "A Serious Man"-- a film I really enjoyed. It felt like it was hitting a lot of the same notes at the front end of the film, with its humour and the Jewish family life. This was considerably darker--don't worry, I noticed.

I found the Ciaran Hinds story and acting strong, though it made me wary I was being set up to think, "Oh, not such a bad guy, after all." I was relieved this never went further than to suggest, "only human, after all." I'd be interested to hear what some of my social worker friends think of how the film treats this family's big secret, especially in light of the forgiveness theme.

Joy's thread in this film, quirky and fun as it was at times, felt the weakest. There was something about the character's little girl voice and the vacillation and mood swings that started to annoy and distract me, after a time. Maybe the director was just playing with another cliché, there, about long-suffering women, but, well, see for yourself.

As a big fan of foremost Happiness and Storytelling, I'm very disillusioned about the fact that Todd Solondz may never make great films like those again. This was a disappointment, but not exactly a shock after the gloom of Palindromes.

I'm not sure if this is really supposed to be a sequel to Happiness in the normal sense, but yes, a lot of the characters from that one are back. Sadly Solondz has turned Joy from a half dysfunctional "loser" to a freak, and every scene with her is pretty unbearable. The dad from the first film has also changed a lot, but that makes sense seeing how he's been in prison for years when the film starts.

Palindromes sort of drowned in gloom and repulsion. LDW isn't quite the same but it's still bleak, and often creepy. At times it borders to psychological thriller.

I have to respect Solondz for making a philosophical effort, but if there was a specific point with the story, I didn't quite get it. There's the subject of fear and hysteria in the U.S all over, but other than that, I didn't get that much out of it. All in all it was like a (expectedly) weirdish film with a lot of darkness and absurdity. Happiness and Storytelling were dark but also very funny and balanced with a sort of pleasantness that I just can't see here. It's like a long nightmare.

Before Palindromes Solondz was to me possibly the greatest living director. I REALLY hope he either gets back to his old form or tries out something new that works better.

It's a sorta sequel to director Todd Solondz's 1998 film Happiness and the Jordan sisters. The characters are recast. Joy Jordan (Shirley Henderson) marries Allen Mellencamp (Michael K. Williams) who makes obscene calls and she is haunted by Andy (Paul Reubens). Bill Maplewood (Ciarán Hinds) is let out of prison serving for child molestation. His ex-wife Trish Jordan (Allison Janney) has to deal with her son Timmy finding out about Bill's crime. Bill starts dating Jacqueline (Charlotte Rampling). Trish is set to marry 'normal' Harvey Wiener (Michael Lerner). Helen Jordan (Ally Sheedy) is a successful screenwriter in California.

Recasting everybody has the weird sense of an alternate universe. It makes this a weirdly unreal movie. I can't say that the actors are inferior but they are different. I'm not a big fan of Happiness and this doesn't change that. I can't find any rooting interest in any of these characters. Some are downright kill worthy. The discussion between Trish and Timmy is so pathetic that it's almost funny. At least, it was memorable.

Todd Solondz comes back one more time resuming stories about joy and sorrows, forgives, forgets and regrets, the same gears that leaded his previous works as Welcome To Dollhouse (1995), Happiness (1998) and Palindromes (2004), in one way or another.

Here the story surrounds the life of a kid and the members of his family that are trying to discover the meanings of when and how could people achieve the joy or the happiness in their lives just forgiving or forgetting something harmful enough to be forgotten or forgiven.

As always, Solondz plays with dark humor all the time just to relieve the weight of complex dramatic themes, giving the right balance needed to make real hard life discussions into something as ordinary as a breakfast.

The characters are well constructed and it's interesting the way they lead with the relationships between them. All the time 2 characters are discussing in a table or with something between them, using it like a place where they can put and throw - or sometimes hide - all their problems and differences but at the same time blocking and impeding the reaching of each other, like a battlefield.

Words are like guns and watching those characters hurting each other and using each other words like bullets is shocking because that's what we are, and we are responsible for that. Life During Wartime deals with complex themes, sometimes is a difficult movie for the raw, bitter and impacting dialogs, but you can't run away from them forever.

As another one said: "Todd Solondz is unique and so are his films. He forces you to look through an angle that we systematically ignore".

Great work once again.