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AFI Fest

Terrific performances by Anthony LaPaglia, Eric Stoltz and Caroleen Feeney infuse this well-written comic drama with a realistic ease. Director Mike Bencivenga and his co-scripter, Richard Levine, have crafted a Manhattan-set tale that strikes a fine balance between sardonic banter and poignancy. Centered on the last days of an alcoholic, "Happy Hour" deftly avoids the grimness and maudlin sentimentality one might expect. With a much truer take on the disease than such showier fare as "Leaving Las Vegas", the Davis Entertainment production, which is screening in the AFI Fest's American Directions section, deserves art house exposure.

LaPaglia plays Tulley, a middle-aged copywriter devoted to drink, his faithful colleague Levine (Stoltz) often beside him at the bar. An acclaimed short-story writer in his youth, he has been working on a novel for 17 years, living in the shadow of his father (Robert Vaughn), the kind of successful scribe who lunches at the Algonquin with Pete Hamill, Steve Dunleavy and Jack Newfield (all in for cameos). Tulley's "carefree, pointless life" takes on new meaning when he meets Natalie (Feeney), a spirited schoolteacher, at his watering hole and when he's diagnosed with advanced liver disease.

The film captures the workaday emptiness, politics and open hatreds at the ad agency Tulley calls "drudgery's cathedral." Thomas Sadoski has an effective turn as a cliche-spouting brown-noser who's sleeping with the gorgeous boss (Sandrine Holt). Tulley and Levine get back at the back-stabbing young wannabe with a couple of inventive pranks involving a colostomy bag and a porn tape.

LaPaglia's hard-boiled voice-over notwithstanding, the real focus of "Happy Hour" is Levine, and Stoltz portrays him with an appropriate ambiguity. An aspiring writer who hides himself behind a low-stress numbers-crunching job, he's effete and urbane, the consummate fifth wheel to Tulley and Natalie's relationship and possibly in love with his friend. Stoltz and Feeney convey the fallout and the rewards for people who attach themselves to alcoholics, while LaPaglia's Tulley is charming, awful and utterly believable. Malachy McCourt makes the most of his brief appearance as Tulley's gruff, disappointed literary mentor.

AFI Fest

Terrific performances by Anthony LaPaglia, Eric Stoltz and Caroleen Feeney infuse this well-written comic drama with a realistic ease. Director Mike Bencivenga and his co-scripter, Richard Levine, have crafted a Manhattan-set tale that strikes a fine balance between sardonic banter and poignancy. Centered on the last days of an alcoholic, "Happy Hour" deftly avoids the grimness and maudlin sentimentality one might expect. With a much truer take on the disease than such showier fare as "Leaving Las Vegas", the Davis Entertainment production, which is screening in the AFI Fest's American Directions section, deserves art house exposure.

LaPaglia plays Tulley, a middle-aged copywriter devoted to drink, his faithful colleague Levine (Stoltz) often beside him at the bar. An acclaimed short-story writer in his youth, he has been working on a novel for 17 years, living in the shadow of his father (Robert Vaughn), the kind of successful scribe who lunches at the Algonquin with Pete Hamill, Steve Dunleavy and Jack Newfield (all in for cameos). Tulley's "carefree, pointless life" takes on new meaning when he meets Natalie (Feeney), a spirited schoolteacher, at his watering hole and when he's diagnosed with advanced liver disease.

The film captures the workaday emptiness, politics and open hatreds at the ad agency Tulley calls "drudgery's cathedral." Thomas Sadoski has an effective turn as a cliche-spouting brown-noser who's sleeping with the gorgeous boss (Sandrine Holt). Tulley and Levine get back at the back-stabbing young wannabe with a couple of inventive pranks involving a colostomy bag and a porn tape.

LaPaglia's hard-boiled voice-over notwithstanding, the real focus of "Happy Hour" is Levine, and Stoltz portrays him with an appropriate ambiguity. An aspiring writer who hides himself behind a low-stress numbers-crunching job, he's effete and urbane, the consummate fifth wheel to Tulley and Natalie's relationship and possibly in love with his friend. Stoltz and Feeney convey the fallout and the rewards for people who attach themselves to alcoholics, while LaPaglia's Tulley is charming, awful and utterly believable. Malachy McCourt makes the most of his brief appearance as Tulley's gruff, disappointed literary mentor.