"That's a nice-a donut."
Friday, November 25, 2005
Happy Endings (2005)
Don Roos' Happy Endings joins the ever-growing list of ensemble dramas, with several interconnected stories and characters, good acting, and a somewhat contrived plot that mostly manages to come together in the end. Unlike other ensemble pics though, such as Paul Haggis' Crash, this one tries to be more of a comedy. In fact, within the first minute of the film, an on-screen caption explains: "No one dies in this movie, not on screen. It's a comedy, sort of."
There are three main threads to Happy Endings. One of them, which I suppose is the central story, revolves around Mamie (Lisa Kudrow) who works at a women's health services center. Years ago as a teenager she got pregnant with her step-brother and was sent away, where at the last moment she changed her mind and had the baby to give it up for adoption. Now, one day she is met by a slimy documentary filmmaker (Jesse Bradford) who claims to know who her lost child is, and tries to blackmail her. His bright idea is to film her journey to meet her son that she gave up. But she has a better idea. Meanwhile, her step-brother Charley (Steve Coogan) is now gay and living with his partner Gil (David Sutcliffe). He gets a bright idea to confront the lesbian couple that they are close friends with because he believes that the couple's son was artificially inseminated with Gil's stolen sperm. Finally, the third tale concentrates on Jude (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who manages to get invited to live in the pool house of a wealthy man (Tom Arnold) and his in-the-closet gay son. She easily seduces the man and they are quickly engaged, but will it be a happy ending?
The best thing about Happy Endings is clearly that Roos manages to get strong performances from all of the actors. Gyllenhaal is sublime, as usual. Everything seems to come so naturally to her. I like how she continues to seek out good scripts and work in more independent, low-budget far, but I'd love it if she could move on and balance this with some bigger studio films that more people will see. Her interactions with Arnold are great, and undoubtedly the highpoints of the movie.
These are all interesting stories, and as we were told before; it is funny. Sort of. But we are rarely exposed, or given insights into, the true thoughts and feelings of any of these characters. Well, other than in the occasional on-screen notes, which come across as simple pop-up trivia factoids. Like: oh, by the way, so-and-so is feeling this emotion right now. This style feels offbeat and quirky, but that strength is also the movie's weakness, as it unwittingly causes us to not identify with them as much as we probably should. The movie is mostly composed of short vignettes about each set of characters, with some ongoing theme in all of them. Namely, all three of the main plots involve some form of blackmail or (especially) deception. Most of these people end up being fairly unlikeable and, by the end, I didn't care too much about the fate of anyone. The movie is all about getting to the endings and, by the end, there is not much left to the imagination.
The Verdict: C+.
Michael Bentley 8:54 AM
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