The Criterion Collection plays hero once again with their recent 4K UHD release of Todd Solondz’s 1998 sophomore feature, Happiness.
The film had long languished on a pitiful non-anamorphic window-boxed DVD from Lionsgate and fans have been clamoring for an updated version for many, many years. The grand dame of boutique home video has finally come to the rescue, following their Blu-ray release of Solondz’s Life During Wartime, Happiness marks the filmmaker’s second release with the label, and hopefully not the last as his follow ups – the equally confronting Storytelling and the outré masterpiece Palindromes – also deserve reevaluation.
Happiness is a story of small town disfunction, not unlike David Lynch’s white picket fence nightmare, Blue Velvet, but Solondz replaces the hard-boiled narrative structure with a meandering slice of life comedy. Beginning with a painfully uncomfortable break up dinner between a lovable loser played by Jon Lovitz and his soon-to-be former girlfriend Joy (Jane Adams), Solondz’s cruelly voyeuristic observation of one man’s pain proves to be an omen for the rest of the film, as one by one we see characters reveal their true selves, only to wish we never learned the truth.
Joy’s search for happiness leads her to her sister Trish (Cynthia Maplewood) who seems to have it all; a long and loving marriage to her doting husband Bill (Dylan Baker) and a smart but shy son, Billy (Rufus Read). Little does Joy know the darkness in Bill’s heart and the pain that Billy suffers as puberty has arrived in his body and mind like a freight train.
Then there is Joy’s other sister, the footloose and fancy-free Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle), an author also searching for connection when her material success devolves into a morass of ennui. She receives a lewd phone call from the desperately horny Allen (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) that turns her on in a way that she can’t explain.
It’s not Allen’s first call, but it’s the first one that didn’t hang up in disgust and he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Leading both people to examine their own motivations as the viewer is forced to watch this blind date from hell.
While all of these adults weave in and out of each other’s lives, there is a much darker undercurrent of child sexual abuse when one of the characters drugs and assaults a pre-teen boy. Solondz treats the assault with an objective distance that is both disturbing and reverent of the gravity of the situation, and the fallout is swift and sweeping throughout this tightly intertwined community. While the topic is hardly the stuff of a light comedy, in Solondz deft treatment, it becomes the kind of story at which uncomfortable laughs can’t help escaping in the moments not focused on the attacks, implicating the viewer in the violence, not unlike Haneke’s Funny Games.
It’s a brilliant film that would have a hard time finding a home these days, but after the lighter almost childish Welcome the Dollhouse, it really solidified Solondz as a filmmaker without fear, and we have far too few of those.
The Disc:
As an upgrade from the above mentioned non-anamorphic DVD, Criterion’s 4K UHD disc is a stunner. The visuals are obviously hugely improved not only by the jump from standard definition, but also the addition of a Dolby Vision HDR pass works wonders.
While much of the film is shot in pretty naturalistic lighting, not really offering much in the way or flash, there are several outdoor sequences, including a dream sequence of a public park slaughter in which the colors burst off the screen. The improvement in detail from any previous editions of the film is also exceptional, but to be expected when the only comparisons are decades old.
On the disc, Criterion has provided two video extras, and while the quantity may seem lean, what we get is pretty solid. There is a 40+ minute conversation between Solondz and filmmaker Charlotte Wells during which Solondz recalls his time with the film and the process of writing the script. It’s an interesting interview, though neither party is exactly the loquacious type, it sort of fits the tone of the film in that way.
There’s also a 20-minute interview of Dylan Baker, whose bravura performance as Bill Maplewood is the centerpiece of this brilliant ensemble. Baker discusses shaping this character and his approach to material that might seem distasteful to the audience. It’s an engaging and informative conversation that illustrates the deep love Baker still has for the character and the film 25 years alter.
There’s also a printed fold out -- stop doing this Criterion, just invest in staples -- essay from filmmaker Bruce Wagner that focuses more on the author’s personal relationship with Solondz than anything specific to the film. Honestly, the essay is pretty forgettable and not one of Criterion’s greatest achievements.
Happiness has long been a favorite of mine, having seen it when it first came out as an impressionable teenager, the film was among a handful of confrontational American indies that defined the late ‘90s in the eyes of many. To see it resurrected in this way is a dream. Highly recommended.