HAPPINESS

• Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Dylan Baker and Lara Flynn Boyle
• Directed by Todd Solondz
• Unrated strong sexual content, no one under 17 admitted; running time 134 minutes
• With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a 6

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(Nov. 6, 1998) -- Can a film's greatness be measured by how much it shocks you? If so, then Todd Solondz's Happiness is what many other critics proclaim it to be -- the movie of the year.

Let's see. One of the stars is a guy-next-door family man who just happens to be a pedophile. And who uses his 12-year-old son's sleepover as an opportunity to drug and rape the kid's friends.

Another key character is a pathetic, phone-sex loser who harasses total strangers.

Heck, Happiness even upstages the recent There's Something About Mary by treating us to two instances of on-screen semen.

If discomfort's your thing, Happiness pays big dividends.

The film is the latest dissection of New Jersey suburban life by writer-director Solondz, who also gave us the inventive, bittersweet satire Welcome to the Dollhouse.

Here he assembles a cross-section of characters in a sort of East Coast variation of Short Cuts. The connecting links in the ensemble are three sisters:

The lovesick Joy (Jane Adams), who gets dumped by her boyfriend (Jon Lovitz) as the film opens, and then begins a risky flirtation with an aggressive cab driver.

Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle), a supposedly tougher single woman who still finds herself courting an anonymous stalker, just to get material for her writing career.

Trish (Cynthia Stevenson), happily married to Bill, a successful therapist (Dylan Baker), and blissfully unaware of his obsession with pubescent boys.

Others involved with the sisters include the lonely Allen (Fairport native Philip Seymour Hoffman), an obsessive masturbator who seeks satisfaction through random phone calls; Kristina (Camryn Manheim), Allen's fat and equally lonely neighbor, and Vlad (Jared Harris), a Russian emigre cab driver and compulsive thief.

And then there's Billy, Trish and Bill's 12-year-old son and the saddest character in this whole sad enterprise.

In the film's most devastating scene, father and son sit on a sofa and discuss Dad's despicable behavior. The son tries valiantly to understand his father's perversion, while expressing concerns about his own sexual awakening.

It's the sickest birds-and-bees talk on which you'll ever eavesdrop.

Because Happiness is, for the most part, a comedy, you'll feel unsettled, and maybe guilty, for daring to laugh.

So, yes, Happiness is a shocker. Its shock waves have continued to buffet me in the two months since I saw the film. In more than two decades of film reviewing, I've never been more divided in my feelings about a movie.

There is much I admire about Happiness -- including uniformly brilliant performances -- but there is much more that disgusts me.

This extremely cynical film paints a bleak picture of a pathetic society, overflowing with losers and perverts who strive vainly for happiness.

But to say that a pedophile or phone-sex thrill-seeker is a human being isn't enough. I already know they're people; they're just not people I want to spend any time with.

If you want to make a serious, literate film that explores the darker aspects of the human psyche -- say, a Lolita or Raging Bull -- I'm with you. But I'm not interested if you only plan to display such people as everyday folks -- and objects of humor, at that.

My debate on Happiness comes down to a basic question: Does the shock value of the film have any purpose beyond chic sick humor?