...Is A Warm Weird Movie
Just finishing this movie, I feel like someone hit me repeatedly with a frying pan and I haven't felt like this since I watched "Requiem For A Dream", and the very odd thing is my girlfriend requested that I watch both movies. I'm starting to think she's out to make me watch the weirdest movies to either make me look normal in comparison or to slowly destroy any living brain cells I have left.
Now, that might sound like I don't like this movie, which isn't true. I like it. It's just one of those movies you can't say "Happiness? Oh I LOVE that movie!!!! It's freakin' awesome!!!!" You just hear, "Happiness? Oh yeah...I seen that. It's a...movie. I agree." And now I have the task to try to put into words why this movie has this effect.
It starts off innocently enough at a restaurant where Joy (Jane Adams) is breaking up with her boyfriend Andy, played by Jon Lovitz. Don't get too happy, Lovitz didn't commit a lot of time to this movie. Andy doesn't take the breakup too well and he shows Joy this ashtray that's covered in gold and is a replica from some ashtray some king had back in the 1800's and it has her name etched into it. While she's fawning over the ashtray, Andy snatches it back saying "Oh well, you broke up with me, Too Bad, So Sad." Oh and he might've called her a bitch somewhere in there.
We then meet Helen, Joy's sister, played by Lara Flynn Boyle, who probably decided she liked the Ally MacBeal look and went for it. Helen is some writer chick who lives next door to Allen, played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
Ahh, Phillip Seymour Hoffman. I feel kind of sorry for this guy. He gets typecasted in a lot of weird perverted roles because he looks like a weird perverted guy. But he also gets a lot of stuck up asshole roles as well. Well, anyway, in this part, he's a SUPER perverted guy who has a weird crush on Helen and he tells his therapist, Bill, about the type of things he'd like to do to her, which gets extremely graphic and sounds kinda cool.
I should ask my girlfriend if she'd like to try some of those things out sometime.
Bill, oddly enough, is married to Trish, who is Joy and Helen's sister. Bill and Trish have three kids, the oldest one named Billy, who is eleven and going through some weird sexual phase of his life. Is there anything else I need to mention about these three people? Hmm...
Well, Trish is kind of a stuck up bitch, thinking she's "all that"...but I'm thinking I'm forgetting something...
Oh! Right! Bill likes to masturbate to pictures of little boys. How could I forget that?
Then we get a glimpse of Trish, Joy, and Helen's parents lives, Mona and Lenny. They decide to split up, not a divorce, which becomes a weird catchphrase for this movie, and Mona looks for another place to live. Lenny enjoys his new found freedom by playing golf and getting it on with Diane, this chick who could give Rue McCalahan a run for her money.
To futher explore Allen's weird pervertness, we see him going through names in a phone book and calling up women and masturbates to them while they talk. He does this with Joy, who thinks it's this one dude named Damien. She finds out it's not, gets freaked, and hangs up, right when Allen "comes". That too becomes a catchphrase for this movie.
Allen is constantly pestered by this somewhat fat chick named Kristina who is played by that one famous fat chick who goes around saying she's fat and she was on some lawyer show who played a fat chick. I think you all know who I'm talking about, I'm not gonna look up her name. We get the idea that Kristina has a thing for Allen because she constantly bothers him and gets all sad when he won't go to a playoff game with her.
Hm, a pervert and a fat chick. Sounds like a match made in heaven.
Joy finds out that Andy killed himself and is all weepy about it at her telemarketer job. She talks to her fellow employees about it, one of them played by Molly Shannon, and they can't quite remember who this Andy guy was. I guess this frustrates Joy cause she quits and takes up a job teaching immigrants how to speak English or something. But she gets pelted with fruit because the real teachers are on strike and they call her a "scab".
One of her students, Vlad, who is a Russian cab driver, spots her walking one day and offers to take her home. Once there, he reveals he's a thief and I suppose he is because he stole her heart. (That deserves either a "boo" or a "aww", depending on who you are.) Well, it ALL turns out that Vlad is really dating this Russian chick who gets pissed, tries to beat up Joy but really doesn't succeed, and Vlad beat the shit out of the Russian chick, stole Joy's guitar and CD player, and wants to borrow five hundred bucks. Joy gives him the money, gets her shit back, and flees.
I hate to do this but I have to get back to Bill.
Bill gets infatuated with this kid named Johnny, who is friends with Billy, who wants him to stay the night which he does, and Bill ends up drugging the entire family and...well...yeah. So I don't have to come back to this again later, Bill later hears another kid named Ronald is staying by himself at home while his parents go away on vacation and...well...yeah.
Ok, that's done. Phew.
Allen calls Helen one day, says all the things he wants to do to her, and hangs up. Helen is intreged, calls back and says "Ok, come over and do these things." Allen, kind of a coward, doesn't and constantly hangs his phone up.
Kristina comes knocking again and because in a scene earlier, she saw him sloppy drunk and he yelled at her, Allen apologized and invited her to go out with him. They dance to Air Supply (Ha-Ha-Ha! Air Supply!!) in a bar, then get something to eat.
There, we find out something kinda weird about Kristina.
She keeps mentioning this doorman named Pedro, who was found murdered without his pee-pee and saying how much it sucks. It all turns out that Pedro, one night, rapes Kristina and because she's all pissed off about that, kills Pedro and chopped up his body and stores it in her freezer. She tells Allen all of this, by the way. And, well I gotta say, he took it rather well.
Allen finally gets the nerve to go to Helen's apartment, she realizes the mysterious caller is him, says "Ewww...you're gross and you were a dick to Patch Adams! Get out!" and so he seeks comfort in the murderous Kristina.
Damn...I do have to come back to this. Oh well...
All the kids that Bill bangs get sick and police are suspecious and they all start asking Bill questions. Johnny's dad threatens Bill and the next day the words "Serial Rapist Pervert" is spraypainted across their house. Later that night, Bill confesses to Billy that he is in fact a serial rapist pervert and he likes little boys in "that way", which is disturbing to Billy because Billy constantly talks to Bill about sex and "coming". Needless to say, Trish takes the kids and gets the hell out of there.
Six months later, the family gets together and talk about what they're up to. Pretty much everyone is single and Helen is trying to find dates for everyone, including Mona. Billy is out on the balcony watching a big boobed woman sunbath and he finally "comes", which becomes the very last thing said in the movie. I can only assume that Bill is getting butt raped in prison.
If I forgot anything I'm sure it wasn't important. And I'm sure you too feel like you got hit by a frying pan over and over while reading this. I can't help but wonder why people write movies like this. Like, did the writer and director of this, Todd Solondz, just sit in his house one day and say "I wanna write a fucked up movie about child rapists, perverts, and the word 'come' and give it a really nice, sunny title." I should call this Todd Solondz and find out if that was the thinking process to this movie.
Be sure to look out for my movie, called "Dark Lord Satan" about three furry kittens who travel on a rainbow looking for their lost mommy kitty and they meet up with a unicorn and a cuddly panda bear.
3 stars.
"Happiness" on IMDb.com:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0147612/