Seed NewsvineHappiness Is A Warm Load
In honor of its ten year anniversary, I harked back into my nostalgic DVD collection and watched "Happiness" again, eagerly hoping to find myself laughing hysterically in the same manner critics back in '98 claimed to have been when the film came out. Unfortunately, I found myself in the same deadly-quiet state of seriousness I was in as a thirteen year old watching it for the first time. And that's not a bad thing.
Director Todd Solondz did make me laugh like a madman in almost every scene of his "Welcome To The Dollhouse," but in his "Happiness" I think the intended (if they are) laughs drown in the film's sea of ugly and disturbing currents of human tragedy. It's not a dark comedy, and to call it a dark drama makes it sound like it's "Monster" or something. It's the strangest of the genres; a film that is uniquely in its own kind of category.
What was more apparent this time around, was how much the film's argument circumvents the idea of sex being the primal and surprisingly only useful feat we as humans are capable of achieving. It sounds bold, but the more I thought of this notion while watching it, the more I felt like I was watching an entirely different movie; perhaps this train of thought went unnoticed while watching the film for the first time as an early teen. When puberty hits, discoveries like masteurbation usually cloud one's sense for clarity.
Every character in this film is in a sense longing to achieve sexual pleasure. Philip Seymour Hoffman's character, the most obvious of the bunch, calls his neighbor (Lara Flynn Boyle) and breathes heavily on the phone, telling her he wants to pump her hard until she has his cum bursting out of her ears. Dylan Baker (in one of the best performances of the 1990s) plays a suburban dad and employed psychiatrist who can't seem to make love to his wife (he even lies to her about making love the night before during a morning wake up scene) but has a remarkable desire to have sex with nine year old boys (usually drugged or by physical force). Even those who "murder" in the film, do so in order to react to their sexual longings. When Camryn Mannheim's character kills the doorman after he rapes her, she makes it a particular order to cut off his penis. Here in its most primitive force is the act of sexual domination (and thus success) highlighted.
I guess the first time I watched "Happiness" as a young teen, my initial reactions weren't so much to examine these sexual demons, but to instead long to find out if they would ever get caught or if their problems would ever get solved. Where's the arresting of Camryn Mannheim? How come Hoffman chickens out with Boyle in the end?!
But that's not what Solondz wants; I know this now, watching it with a seasoned pair of eyes. This is his dissertation on the impotence of the American society, a culture whose sexual boundaries are laid out in bold. Since the release of "Happiness" a tumult of revelation and news hysteria has been fine-tuning our views on what is considered appropriate sexual behavior. Institutions such as the church, have found themselves in pandemonium with the release of testimonies from individuals claiming to have been raped by priests and other members of the clergy. Politicians who bash gay rights find themseves with their pants around their ankles while fucking male prostitutes over their mahogany desks. In a word, "Happiness" was a naked look at our society without all the headlines and media soundbites. These are people. People like this exist. This is what makes them happy. And it's all traced back to sex.
The big payoff at the end of the film, a perfect ending for this conflict, has Billy Maplewood (Rufus Read), a soft-faced preteen, finally reach orgasm. An almost horrid close-up, a quick tight shot of sperm hitting a balcony rail, has an effect that is both icky and exhilarating. Here we see the end of biblical innocence and the mark of another individual coming (no pun intended) to terms with life.
