Happy Endings

Vignettes are a tricky business. To make a film with more than three main stories to follow that interconnect and are unified in some significant way is a challenge. "Love, Actually" is one of the only recent films to successfully pull this off, using Christmas and love as a unifying factor. Don Roos' "Happy Endings" uses ... love? happiness? sexuality? infatuation? It's not clear, and making all the vignettes cross-connect with each other doesn't satisfy what we look for in these movies. Each vignette should essentially tell the same message in a different way. "Happy Endings" has several original concepts, but the connection is obscure and hard to draw.

Roos ("The Opposite of Sex") essentially tells three stories: First follows Mamie (Lisa Kudrow) and the documentary she helps aspiring filmmaker Nicky (Jesse Bradford) make about her masseuse/lover Javier (Bobby Cannavale) so that she can find out information Nicky has of the son she gave away at birth when she was 18. The second follows the father of that child, Charlie (Steve Coogan), who is now gay and convinced that his partner (David Sutcliffe) is the biological father of their lesbian friends' son, whom he donated sperm to once and it supposedly didn't work. Last is Jude (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a free spirit who meets Otis (Jason Ritter), a young man that works in Charlie's restaurant who is hiding his homosexuality from his rich father (Tom Arnold). Jude promises Otis that she won't say anything if he doesn't spoil her plan to become involved with his father for the money.

That mostly covers the labyrinthian complexity of "Happy Endings," which despite it's courage to choose such unique scenarios , doesn't seem to ever make clear sense. It's all quite interesting, as this is relationship drama we've never seen before, but there are a lot of emotions flying around and motivations that seem to lack sources. It probably all made sense in Roos' head, but it doesn't convert.

The acting talent isn't necessarily lacking either. This is the best performance I've ever seen Kudrow give in a film -- she reminds me of another Annette Bening. Gyllenhaal is also one of the more complex (in the intriguing way) characters and she draws the widest variety of emotions from the audience as she crosses a fine line between sincerity and deception. Although the characters are interesting, however, we mostly feel just apathy because the snippets we get of them are more puzzling than revealing.

Another unique technique that Roos employs is adding subtitles that give away little pieces of information about the characters as we watch them, whether it's what happens in the future to them or a secret they have. It's supposed to add a unique twist to what's being shown on screen, but it's hard enough to make sense of what's going on on screen as it is. It's not a bad idea, but it just saturates this film even more.

Watching vignettes interconnect is always entertaining and interesting, but "Happy Endings" is overstuffed and it creates a disconnect between the characters and the audience, which no amount of character interconnectedness can solve.

Having tremendously enjoyed Don Roos' previous effort, the Opposite of Sex, I snapped up Happy Endings upon release of the DVD without knowing anything about it. Many of my friends didn't like the Opposite of Sex; when I asked them why, each confessed a dislike of Lisa Kudrow. When I noticed she was also in the cast of Happy Endings, and in fact plays one of the main characters, I figured I'd better shut up about mentioning my latest acquisition to some of those friends until I had a chance to watch it. Watch it I did, and I have nothing but good things to report. Like the Opposite of Sex, Happy Endings revolves around several gay and straight characters, with enough attention paid to both, thus ensuring that the film could appeal to a mixed audience. There is where all similarities end. While Opposite of Sex had a relatively up-front and focused plot, Happy Endings manages to juggle several plots and subplots all at once. Each of the characters lives touch other characters lives in a style not unlike that of director Robert Altman. In fact, I kept thinking that the pacing and juggling of the subplots was somewhat similar to Short Cuts, or even Crash (in the way that Crash was also compared to Altman's style). Keeping everyone sorted out in my mind became something of a chore, but I generally like films that make you think and keep you on your toes. There were one or two surprises, including several totally unexpected plot twists, and that's always good too. As a comedy I didn't laugh so much as I smiled, and I asked myself more than once, "I wonder what will happen next". As the end credits were rolling I decided I enjoyed my visit with these people, and could easily have managed to sit though even more. How often do you hear that about a movie that runs over two hours?

The cast, which includes Tom Arnold, Jason Ritter and Jesse Bradford give even and professional performances throughout. It worked in a way that good ensemble pieces always work; that is, it would be difficult to single out any one member of the cast, as they worked off each other in such a way that no one could expect all the notices. Another good thing, in my book. I am definitely going to suggest to my friends that they give Don Roos another shot, Lisa Kudrow and all. I can certainly think of worse ways to spend a couple of hours.

My wife rented this yesterday and we watched it last night. I'd never heard of it. After watching about 15 minutes of it, I thought "What in the world is this," because it was so frenetic. As written in the summary, there are several stories simultaneously being told, and it's kinda hard to keep everything straight. But, after awhile it starts to come together and you begin to pull for one or another of the characters.

I've never watched "Friends," so I haven't seen Lisa Kudrow much, but this was a good performance as a girl who alternates between spineless and fed up. I hadn't seen much of the rest of the cast before, so I can't comment. I also think it's interesting that Tom Arnold was first known for being married to Rosanne Barr, but it seems that lately he's gotten many various supporting roles, enough so that I find myself thinking: "Yeah, he was married to Rosanne whats-her-name?" Anyway, I liked this movie.

Yes, it's bizarre, quirky, odd, whatever you want to call it, but it ends well. It's one to watch. One more thing: it has many spots where there is a black sidebar with kind of "footnote" information. I found myself eventually pausing the DVD to read these things, because I didn't want to miss the music and a bit of action that might be taking place. I wish they would have just paused the movie at these points, and they were worthwhile explanations. Thumbs up!

Don Roos wrote and directed this lively, sometimes poignant, but not especially funny comedy-drama centering around an abortion counselor's secret that she had given birth to her step-brother's baby when she was a teenager and quickly gave it up for adoption. In this role, Lisa Kudrow really excels with the writer-director's dryly observant style: she's loose but not flailing, inquisitive but not harping, apprehensive but not frightened. Kudrow (whose comic timing reminds one of Roseanne's in the early years of her TV sitcom) mixes a look of anxiety, despair, nervousness and anticipation with astonishing skill--even when her character is humiliated (or humiliates herself), Kudrow has a way of keeping all the flightiness grounded in some form of reality. Matching her, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Tom Arnold have some wonderful early scenes; she's a born user and a killer karaoke singer, while he plays the father of the gay 21-year-old drummer whom Gyllenhaal has already seduced and discarded. It's too bad we don't get more of this relationship, and also unfortunate that Roos covers up most of their dialogue with soundtrack music (it's a coupling which happens in montage). Roos plants little subtitles throughout the movie to help sort out who's-who, and this works to some degree (yet it's a relief when the device is momentarily given a rest). Some of the other story threads are dim (a couple of which center on gay men turning their homosexuality on and off like a light-switch), but Kudrow's work and Tom Arnold's natural, easy-going presence keep the film absorbing and often appealing. And nobody sings "Just the Way You Are" like Gyllenhaal. **1/2 from ****

Writer/director Don Loos has the corner on bizarre, wiggly, frustrating, veritas-infused glimpses at the absurdity of human 'communications/relationships' happening right now. His previous writings (some with direction credits) include 'The Opposite of Sex', 'Boys on the Side', 'Love Field', and 'Bounce', all of which explore the desperate need for regular people to find just a hint that their time on the planet makes a difference - at least in some small way despite their larger delusions. His characters are quirky, both bigger than life and pathetically dreary, and cross the lines of the expected borders of types: Roos is one of the few directors who consistently plays the 'minority groups' (gays, lesbians, African Americans, Hispanics, etc) as simply other characters on the playing field of life. And for that he deserves some respect from everyone.

HAPPY ENDINGS (suggestively referring to the ad promise found in masseur/masseuse in the Massage Available columns of magazines and some newspapers!) follows the lives of multiple characters whose rather insignificant existences intersect in random ways that produce ten 'stories', all interrelated. Topics on the table include abortion, gay relationships, homophobia, parental dysfunction/child dysfunction, emotional manipulation, blackmail, film-making, artificial insemination, failed dreams, and more. Sound like ingredients for a comedy? Well, no, but in Roos' funky hands these incipient tragic topics weave through tragic trails that result in dark comedy outcomes. And that is the fun of the film.

Yes, there are problems with the movie that others have pointed out well. The gimmick of sidebars explaining what the script doesn't attack, visible on the half screen with scene change action, begin as clever and end up as annoying: if the script can't carry the issues without footnotes then there is just too much information for the viewer to digest. What keeps this movie afloat are the performances by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Lisa Kudrow, Jess Bradford, Bobby Carnavale, Tom Arnold, Steve Coogan, Laura Dern, Sarah Clarke, Jason Ritter, David Sutcliffe and Amanda Foreman. This is a talented cast and at times we feel they are actually overcoming the plot's weaknesses with their strong imagery.

Every Roos film feels like a work in progress, but there are enough fine lines of creativity that promise us someday they will all gel into an exceptional film. This one is too long and too choppy and too difficult to follow with all the visual interruptions of sidebar words to be his best work. Grady Harp