I enjoyed HAPPY ENDINGS, despite the fact that it uses several narrative devices I hope never to see in indie movies again for some time.
One, the plot, in which different groups of people have their lives all connect at various intervals while following their own individual arcs (think LOVE ACTUALLY but American and more polysexual).
Two, the intro, in which something really dramatic and sudden happens, then there’s a freeze frame, and a narrator (here a silent one represented by text only, but still) makes some kind of witty comment like “That certainly was a bad day! But let’s start at the beginning…” Then the movie really begins, and the scene you’ve just witnessed reoccurs again at the climax of the film.
So, in this case, the movie opens with Lisa Kudrow being hit by a car. There’s a freeze frame. Then half the screen goes black, and a caption appears saying “She isn’t dead,” then “No-one dies in this movie, at least onscreen. It’s a comedy, sort of.”
This device reoccurs throughout the film, and is more tasteful and amusing than a voice-over would be. But it’s still the equivalent, and thus a cliche.
The center of the story is the relationship between Kudrow and Steve Coogan, playing her stepbrother, with whom she got pregnant once, but “He’s gay now. Who isn’t?” It took me forever to recognize Coogan due to his shorter hair and less broad performance than normal.
But both Kudrow’s character and Coogan’s have separate stories going on. She’s being blackmailed by an unscrupulous young filmmaker who claims to know the identity of the baby she abandoned years ago.
Coogan, meanwhiel, is convinced that the infant son of his boyfriend’s favorite lesbian couple is actually his boyfriend’s son. The guy had donated sperm to the couple once, but they rejected it and said it was no good, then apparently went to a sperm back and had the baby. Were they lying? This consumes Coogan.
Then there’s another whole strand about Maggie Gyllenhaal being a gold-digger who seduces Tom Arnold’s gay son and then tries to marry Tom (obviously there would have to be money involved!). She’s the closest thing to an antagonist figure the movie has, but you can’t hate her, because she’s just so adorable and has sex a lot. You’d pay big money to bone her too.
The movie’s less acerbic than director Don Roos’ debut film THE OPPOSITE OF SEX, and I didn’t see BOUNCE, starring Benyneth (it’s the rule to amalgamate the names of celebrity couples, don’cha know — remember Ben and Gwyneth?). Anyway, BOUNCE most likely sucked, because every movie starring Ben Affleck pretty much does. But Lisa Kudrow and Don Roos are a perfect match — his dialogue and her delivery complement each other nicely, and she trusts him enough to do a brief nip-slip, if that’s your thang.
By the way, if I may go off on an Affleck tangent while my friend Brian silently fumes because I’m being mean about one of his favorite actors, there’s a popular misconception that GIGLI was hated because people were sick of Ben and J-Ho being in the public eye. This is false. People hated GIGLI because it was an extraordinarily misguided mess. If Ben and Jen had made a good movie, no-one would care that they were overexposed. Just like how WAR OF THE WORLDS will probably do great even though Tom Cruise is being completely insane.
So anyway, HAPPY ENDINGS is okay. I wouldn’t pay $10 to see it, but maybe $5 on DVD.
Then last night, as part of the film fest, I thought I was going to go see a Julia Sweeney movie, but no, it was the actual Julia Sweeney live and in person doing a one-woman show called LETTING GO OF GOD, about how she went from being Catholic to being a self-described “naturist” (and a parentally described “atheist), while examining all her options in between. She actually read all the Bible and all the other major religious books too — you’ll get more of the jokes if you have a working knowledge of the main Bible stories. I’m sort of on a similar journey as she, but haven’t come to the same conclusion (that there is definitely no God), or any definite conclusion, come to that. I do agree with her criticisms of the major faiths. Just hearing her matter-of-factly try to wrap her head around the stories in the Book of Mormon is worth the price of admission. And I say that as if I actually paid admission, though in fact I did not.
It’s all amusing stuff, not as heavy as her show about having cancer. And it’s augmented with slides and movies. It was at times a bit like listening to a more mellow version of Amy Alkon without ADD. I think she’s trying to get it made into a movie. I hope she does.
There was a party aftewrards where I could have talked to her, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. I would like to know if she regrets being best known for that hideous “Pat” character on SNL, but thought that if she does, bringing it up would be mean.
The open bar had more than just beer and vodka. Yay. I drink to try to forget the Homo Hobo.
Hm… double review.
First sounds fun, liked Maggie Gyllenhaal in Secretary, and it sounds like all of the craziness that can happen in real life.
Haven’t caught the Sweeney show/book/whathaveyou. I’m under the impression that she lost her faith when her brother died of cancer? Sad.
She’s probably arguing with a bit of a straw man, though… Christian-influences theists run the gamut from fundamentalists to people who interpret the entire Bible as a sort of parable, or try to pare out things that are obviously dated.
Although the super-fundamentalists are pretty common (and loud) in America, they’re not as common elsewhere. They also tend to be among the congregation, as most seminarians go to college for a few years too long to be hyper-literalists.
The Bible is 2,000 years old, and written by some pretty primitive people, so it has to be read carefully. You’d probably find a lot less to object to at a more mainstream church, where they mostly work at helping the poor and don’t argue so much about exact word-for-word scrupture readings.
Anyway, some observations from me personally.
And, on a much less serious note, the Homo Hobo needs a theme song.
“She’s probably arguing with a bit of a straw man, though”
Not really. It’s all about her personally, and not saying that it’s wrong for everybody. Her brother’s cancer is a factor, but it seems like the precipitating event was laughing at the Mormons’ outrageous claims, then realizing her own upbringing made some similarly ridiculous ones.
Oh, that’s fine, then. Like I said, didn’t know much about it; the cancer thing was from a review I read once. You confused me a bit by mentioning AA, who does say it’s wrong for everybody…
She’s nice by email, though, even if she does think I’m stupid.
I do sort of doubt she examined ‘all of her options’, though. Check out this website for an idea of just how long actually doing something like that would take…
http://adherents.com/adh_branches.html
They list over 4,200 distinct religions, and any large/ancient faith will have a bewildering number of ‘flavors’, too.
I heard about fifteen minutes of Sweeney’s show on This American Life on NPR – I had to stop my car and just focus on it, it was so good. I can’t wait to see/hear the whole thing.
I emailed David already, but it may be worth mentioning to all:
One cannot do justice to the exact nuances of Sweeney’s theologocal seeking and conclusion without taking as long as the entire show. So you might as well see her do it rather than expect me to sum everything up succinctly.