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Happiness [DVD] [1999]
 
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Happiness [DVD] [1999]

Jane Adams , Jon Lovitz , Todd Solondz    Suitable for 18 years and over   DVD
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
Price: £3.49 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Product details

  • Actors: Jane Adams, Jon Lovitz, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Dylan Baker, Lara Flynn Boyle
  • Directors: Todd Solondz
  • Writers: Todd Solondz
  • Producers: Christine Vachon, David Linde, James Schamus, Pamela Koffler, Ted Hope
  • Format: PAL
  • Language English, Russian
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3 - 1.33:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 18
  • Studio: Eiv
  • DVD Release Date: 22 May 2000
  • Run Time: 134 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B00004T8VO
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 11,101 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)

Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review

At times brilliant and insightful, at times repellent and false, Happiness is director Todd Solondz's multi-story tale of sex, perversion and loneliness. Plumbing depths of Crumb-like angst and rejection, Solondz won the Cannes International Critics Prize in 1998 and the film was a staple of nearly every critic's Top 10 list. Admirable, shocking, and hilarious for its sarcastic yet strangely empathetic look at consenting adults' confusion between lust and love, the film stares unflinchingly until the audience blinks. But it doesn't stop there. A word of strong caution to parents: One of the main characters, a suburban super dad (played by Dylan Baker), is really a predatory paedophile and there is more than an attempt to paint him as a sympathetic character. Children are used in this film as running gags or, worse, the means to an end. Whether that end is a humorous scene for Solondz or sexual gratification for the rapist becomes largely irrelevant. Happiness is an intelligent, sad film, revelatory and exact at moments. It's also abuse in the guise of art. That's nothing to celebrate. --Keith Simanton

Special Features

4:3 Full Frame
English
Region 2
Dolby Pro Logic English
Dolby Pro Logic
Trailer
TV Spots

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Happiness 14 Aug 2005
Format:DVD
Happiness. What a strange title for a film that is anything but!

It's one of those films that is almost impossible to sum up. It's really a long collection of short interconnecting sketches that detail the personal quirks of a dozen or so characters and the skeletons in their closets they'd probably wouldn't want us to know about.

The main thread of the plot is the three Jordan sisters who are all dealing with their own individual crisis. Firstly we meet Joy, who is having dinner with the boyfriend she's just dumped. Joy is insecure, vulnerable, naive and a little goofy. When Andy, her ex-boyfriend, commits suicide days later and she receives a nasty phone call from Andy's mother, she quits her job and starts to teach immigrants English, only to fall for Russian romantic Vlad, whose partner attacks poor Joy in the staff room when she finds out.

We then meet Allen who is seeing a therapist about his obsession with Helen his neighbour. Helen is one of the Jordan sisters and Allen's therapist is married to the other one, (with us so far?) Allen starts to make dirty phone calls to Helen, but to his amazement Helen actually enjoys them, which just doesn't compute with sad lonely Allen. He has his own problems anyway with his other neighbour, Kristina.

Perhaps the most controversial storyline is concerning the final sister, Trish. As we've said she married to Bill the therapist, but what Trish doesn't know is that Bill is a secret paedophile who secretly drugs his family to take advantage of his son's sleep-over friend. What makes this section even harder to get our heads around is that in every other way Bill is a regular likeable chap, some of the heart to hearts he has with his own son are very tender and sweet, and yet here is a man who represents possibly every parents' worst nightmare.

The film can be laugh out loud funny, sentimental and sometimes quite sickening. There are tender moments and vile moments and even some heartbreaking moments. The performances are to a man absolutely perfect and although I'm not going to single out anyone for special mention all the actors put in totally believable performances and capture you from the first scene onwards.

It's not easy viewing sometimes and there are going to be some viewers who find this to be unwatchable in parts. But that all said it is clever, singular and challenging.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Strong, very strong 12 Jun 2008
Format:DVD
A very intelligent and funny movie. It addresses some very human weaknesses in a very uncompromising way. This is one of the rare movies that shows human behaviour without trying to conform to what is socially acceptable. The only thing missing is the narrative by David Attenborough.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:DVD
This is my favourite film and, if you open your mind just a little bit, you will be greatly rewarded.

Yes, this movie contains child rape, murder, masturbation, paeodophelia etc. but the film is as masterful as it is because it already assumes the audience knows that these things are bad. This is a rare film that will not preach to your "inner conscience" and respects its' audience.

An connecting tale of family disfunction and sexual inadequacy all joined Short Cuts/ Magnolia/ Pulp Fiction style by one or two events is centrally about three daughters, one a terminally smiling but incredibly unfulfilled social worker (Jane Adams), another an unknowing housewife (Cynthia Stevenson) to a paeodophile and the "succesful" one, a beautiful poet with many sexual conquests but feels emotionally empty (Lara Flynn Boyle) and their parents' (Ben Gazzera and Louise Lasser) breakdown of a thirty-year marriage. The film shows all of these (outwardly) normal people, yet many other detailed and brilliant characters, on their search for fulfilment, love and happiness.

Todd Solondz's incredibly ambitious and emotially shattering third film (see also his last: Welcome to the Dollhouse, almost perfect) is a masterpiece, not only of genius scriptwriting that makes you want to laugh, scream, cry and burn the film all in a single line, but also some of the most beautifully underplayed direction, unlike Sam Mendes' recent Oscar winning helming. The relationships are perfectly portayed with the ending scene between Bill, the paeodophile, and his betrayed son one of the most heart wrenching in cinema history.

The acting is completely perfect. From Jon Lovitz's (yes, Jon Lovitz) initially confusing breakdown at the outset to the now eponymous Phillip Seymour Hoffman's phone sex pervert and Dylan Baker's psychiatrist paeodophile, every one would, in a perfect world, take home Oscars.

Instances in this film may make you want to stop watching and damn the film for filth. Don't. This is one of few masterpieces to come out of America in the last decade. Many will not have the stomach for anything quite so perverse but it simply demands to be seen. Purely unmissable.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Happiness
I bought the Happiness dvd after purchasing the film "Kids" which i hadn't seen since its release in the '90's, the film was as "enjoyable" if thats' the right word, as i... Read more
Published 1 month ago by andrew
Do not get this movie
A bunch of misfits without any hope of redemption. Too gross to even be funny. Watching it certainly was a waste of time.
Published 4 months ago by OK
A literal take on coming of age
Never before has a film addressed "coming of age" quite so literally.

This is a dark, dark comedy: the sort of thing that might emanate from the deepest circle of the... Read more
Published 6 months ago by O. Buxton
Makes you think
First, it is not a comedy. Neither hilarious at times so do not be disappointed. Second, it is not about happiness, not even close to it. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Jo Ritz
Deeply dark, funny and painfully uncomfortable.
Though told mainly from the viewpoint of Joy, `Happiness' is essentially the story of three sisters and the characters that surround their lives. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Ernie
Franz Kafka meets the Farrelly Brothers
Many reviewers seem to approach discussion of a Todd Solondz film as they might a visit to the zoo, or a documentary by National Geographic. Read more
Published on 18 May 2010 by J. Jenkins
A profound, perspective-altering and blackly hilarious examination of...
Happiness is a work of art. In the truest sense of the word. The best art is there to provide a response to life, to deal with human existence. Read more
Published on 31 Dec 2009 by Matthew Fennell
terrible
Dont know what the other people were watchin.The more American movies I watch the more I think they should stick to tv(which they do very well),the films they churn out are getting... Read more
Published on 4 May 2009 by N. Tate
'Happiness - more or less'
Unique, twisted, hilarious and at times moving in an almost unexpected way (considering the subject matter - paedophilia, disgust at the human condition and the liberal mores of... Read more
Published on 2 May 2009 by Jamie Firth
Excellent black comedy
Although obviously contrived for the purpose of black comedy, this is an unique and entertaining film with some excellent characerizations. Read more
Published on 23 May 2008 by His Dudeness
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