Happily Even After

Happily. Even After is a tale directed by Singapore born director Unsu Lee, a neat little sibling drama, with a surreal fairy tale inject into the narrative. It's pretty amazing I suppose for any Singaporean director to have had his hands at making a movie in the USofA, and one which stars Jason Behr, of Roswell the television series fame too.

With their parents' unfortunate demise, siblings Elizabeth (Fay Masterson) and Jake (Behr) are left to fend for themselves. Taking upon herself to look after her brother, she falls for an all too familiar role of being the naggy, overly concerned big sister role, a relatively successful career woman, with quite a pathetic love life. Jake, on the other hand, is a character who seemed to have everything going his way as a kid, until he decided to clam up and shut himself to the outside world - the quintessential under-achieving slacker, the disdained anti- social with a mission to bust his liver with alcohol.

However, everything changes (as always) when Katie (Marina Black) enters their lives. Knowing Elizabeth through a roof top encounter, having Katie offer her services as a nanny- fairy-godmother of sorts, to look after Jake and get his life back on track, it seems like it's one of many films with similar plots, of having a girl teaching a guy how to live life. Katie and Jake don't hit it off from the start, given their bad encounter with each other at a laundromat at the start of the movie, but it falls into predictability as our guy falls in love with the girl, sending Jason Behr's groupie fans amongst the audience into ecstasy.

Predictability though, is not on the menu, so some twists are expected towards the end. It might be contrived to some, in the vein that it had to go down the course it was chosen, to be different. But it is indeed this difference that makes this movie truly unique, and having it open ended, allows for various interpretations of what could be, or could have been.

Set in San Francisco, the movie has superb music done by Kid Galahad, which adds an excellent layer accompanying the pleasing visuals. The cast, including those in supporting roles, did an adequate job in fleshing out their characters, and allows you to easily identify the struggles that each of them go through, to overcome doubt, gain confidence, and more importantly, to live life.

This is a really bad film. I have no idea what it's even supposed to be about. None of the dialogue rings true, the acting is very uninspired, and the direction doesn't seem to have any heart. It appears the filmmakers had a lot in the way of resources, but no true artistic ability. Storytelling (especially with film) can be a particularly tricky thing. Each writer and director has to have an individual voice. For me, there was no voice to this film, because the script didn't seem to say anything. If it did say something, it was in a language that I couldn't understand. It seemed like it was directed the way the Three Stooges shorts were directed. They just set up the camera and did stuff in front of it. I don't mean to go hard on this film, but it really was a huge waste of a great chance by independent filmmakers to make something special.

I saw this film at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2004. It was a sweet film set in San Francisco. Basically a romantic comedy, though it was kind of SAD for a romantic comedy! The audience seemed to like it a lot. I kind of thought it would be released on DVD, but so far, no luck. I enjoyed the performances quite a bit. Mostly television actors, with a few funny cameos. The soundtrack is pretty cool; it's a U.K. band that has a similar sound to Badly Drawn Boy (in my opinion). It's not a perfect film, but better than a lot of the film festival fare. A nice look to it. And it has that actor from Lost! Hurley (Jorge Garcia)! I guess this was before he was a TV star!

'Happily, Even After' is a very enjoyable, surprising, magical and heart-warming story that anyone would enjoy. Jason Behr stars as the troubled brother who is driving his successful sister crazy. His sister hires a "fairy godmother" assistant, to try and straighten the brother out. Marina Black and Faye Masterson as the two female leads give very strong performances, and there is a colorful assortment of supporting actors, including a cameo by Ed Asner as the judge. Jorge Garcia, now well-known on 'Lost' as Hurley, has a small role as one of the brother's friends. The film is set in San Francisco. It's great news that this film is now available on DVD from Hotbed.com, the filmmakers, at a reasonable price, so everybody can enjoy it!

Happily, Even After is a sweet, adorable movie to watch. I've no clue why it didn't make to the Theaters. It's so much better then some of the stuff I've seen lately.

Jake (Jason Behr) is a troubled young man, that is still dealing with the death of his parents. He is sort of living in his own dysfunctional world. His sister (Fay Masterson) hires a "Fairy Godmother" (Marina Black) to straighten him out. Which gives us some funny moments, and lots of emotions. All the actors gave a strong performance, but Jason Behr stands out, that guy can talk with his eyes.

This is definitely a must see for everybody. It's money well spent buying this DVD.