Happiness
Jane Adams, Dylan Baker, Lara Flynn Boyle, Ben Gazzara, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Director: Todd Solondz
Confrontational is one way to describe American director Todd Solondz's film. Brilliant might be another. Whichever way you turn, you certainly feel something as the credits slowly roll.
Solondz emerged on the American independent scene in 1995 with the superbly dark tale of teenage misery Welcome to the Dollhouse. And while the big studios beckoned, he chose instead to turn his attention to relationships, desires and the thin facade we humans often hide behind when trying to prove to others (and ourselves) that we are 'happy''.
What shakes you by the collar is the film's often-brutal honesty. And the fact that it is, at the same time, often hilarious.
We are drawn into the lives of three middle-class sisters (Jane Adams, Cynthia Stevenson and Lara Flynn Boyle) who - in many and varied ways - are being torn by what is happening to them and around them.