Perdona e dimentica

Todd Solondz is unique and so are his films. He forces you to look through an angle that we systematically ignore. There is an element of tenderness that permeates the darkest of corners and compassion emerges, limpid, clear even rational. This is, if possible, a sequel to his masterful "Happiness" The pain is still palpable but there is a hint of hope, China or not China. "I don't care about freedom or democracy, I care about my dad" Yes, I hear you kid. In the midst of it all, I hear you. Added bonuses: Cieran Hids as a scary, powerful presence. Allison Janney, one of the best American actresses working today. Charlotte Rampling makes an appearance as a sort of escapee from an erotic nightmare and don't you dare ignore or let this film pass you by. Todd Solondz is a great, startling American poet.

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.

"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"!

First off, while I'm not a fan of everything Solondz has done, I consider Happiness one of my all-time favorite films. Thus, I was really looking forward to Life During Wartime, but after the film was over, I ended up wishing that Solondz had just left Happiness alone. It feels like a direct-to-video exploitation release, or maybe even an especially polished but ultimately off-model fanfic selection in an alternate universe where Happiness somehow holds the stature of Harry Potter.

I am OK with the decision (probably forced, given the current stature of folks like Philip Seymour Hoffman) to recast everyone involved. But given that this is effectively billed as a spiritual sequel, it's hard to get past some of the resulting serious discrepancies in performance and character. Ally Sheedy, Allison Janney, Claran Hines and Michael K. Williams all turn in otherwise-good performances that unfortunately have very little in common with their characters' original personalities, making believable continuation impossible. Dylan Snyder's Timmy represents a new character that effectively replaces the role of Billy in Happiness, but he's nowhere near as believable or likable as that character was.

Shirley Henderson, in particular, totally misses the tone and purpose of Jane Adams in the role of Joy, who was perhaps the only "sympathetic" character in the original (other than Billy). We no longer experience Joy as a sweet, lovable granola-crunchy dreamer and world-worn lifelong loser. Instead, Henderson comes off as some kind of generally-emotionless whispering wee faerie with none of Adams' warmth or ability to generate pathos. I do, however, greatly enjoy Paul Reubens' spot-on performance in the place of Jon Lovitz's original Andy-- although Andy's role in this movie is now inexplicably central, given how little he really mattered to Joy past the first half-hour in Happiness.

It's hard for a Happiness fan to get past the labored and extremely drawn-out exposition that results from all these character discrepancies. You get the feeling that Solondz is having to take unusual pains to catch us up on the story, and to get us to buy New Actor Y in the role of Old Actor X. The movie starts to finally lift up out of these dregs in the last half hour or so, just in time to make us wonder what the point was, and/or why he didn't just create an entirely new universe with his entirely new cast to save himself (and us) all the trouble. I can't imagine a viewer who has never seen Happiness would find its first two-thirds any more satisfying for all the effort.

Most troublingly for those who can't help but compare (and appropriately so, given the "spiritual sequel" billing), Happiness is a darkly hilarious movie, with most of the humor coming from the unspoken sadness and/or maliciousness of its desperate characters' interactions. Life During Wartime simply isn't funny, and isn't similarly "subtle." It's melodramatic, almost soap-opera-like in tone, with few of the wonderfully dissonant, squirm-in-your-chair moments that made Solondz' '90s works so entertaining (and so fun to show to the uninitiated). It often feels like we're being hit over the head with the "purpose" of each character in Wartime, rather than letting their actions / words simply speak for themselves as it was in Happiness.

This might have been a somewhat OK movie if it had been a fresh start with no baggage from Solondz' masterwork. Obviously, it's hard for any director / producer / screenwriter to escape from their widely-beloved past works if they choose to do something different. But in this case, Solondz actually *chose* to bring that baggage along, and dares fans of the original to make comparisons (as is immediately evident from even the opening scene and credits to anyone who remembers Happiness). I'm not sure if this was a cynical effort on the part of Solondz-- who has had documented troubles getting funding for his 00s movies-- to cash in on the relatively small Happiness fanbase, giving them a movie that they "have to see," even though these two films ultimately have very little in common.

Solondz' more recent work in general has been disappointing to me, but his misguided effort to "continue" Happiness has been by far the biggest and most bitter disappointment yet, failing to add anything new, interesting or even tone-appropriate to the universe he wants us to revisit. I desperately hope he's done making "spiritual sequels" now, and will have something really new to say (hopefully as funny as his old stuff) when his next project rolls around.

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.