Overview
A darkly comedic exploration of the human condition and the desperate search for connection.
Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Measured
- Intensity
- Extreme
- Complexity
- Layered
- Violence
- Mild
- grimly comic
- deadpan
- disturbing
- adult cinephile viewing
- dark comedy night
What critics said
Critics broadly praised the film’s fearless grim humor, layered script, and ensemble performances for finding painful humanity within disturbing behavior.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
The therapist’s sexual behavior, adolescent insecurity, and other disturbing acts are staged alongside awkwardly funny everyday interactions.
Joy, Allen, Bill, Helen, Trish, and Mona move through separate but connected stories about loneliness and failed intimacy.
The New Jersey characters pursue connection through acts society regards as disturbing, challenging the boundary between normality and depravity.
Critical consensus emphasizes the search for humanity within everyday depravity, while the ensemble performances expose the characters’ emotional neediness.
Films like Happiness, and why
Welcome to the Dollhouse
Shares grimly comic social satire, dysfunctional families, uncomfortable sexual themes, and an ensemble structure focused on damaged suburban lives.
The Ice Storm
Combines bleak suburban alienation, taboo behavior, deadpan humor, and emotionally abrasive character studies.
Magnolia
Uses black comedy and interconnected character portraits to expose loneliness, repression, and disturbing private desires.
The War Zone
Pairs transgressive sexual subject matter with uncomfortable humor and a compassionate examination of isolated outsiders.
Movie Details
- Director
- Todd Solondz
- Release Date
- 1998-10-11
- Runtime
- 140 min
- Rating
- 7.4 / 10 (987)
Cast
- Jane Adams
- Philip Seymour Hoffman
- Dylan Baker
- Lara Flynn Boyle
- Cynthia Stevenson
- Louise Lasser
- Ben Gazzara
- Camryn Manheim
- Rufus Read
- Jon Lovitz
Common questions
- What is Happiness about?
- Todd Solondz’s fearless ensemble dark comedy finds bleak, unsettling humor in lonely suburban people pursuing intimacy through socially forbidden desires.
- What is Happiness like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of Happiness as measured, its intensity as extreme and its storytelling as layered.
- Is Happiness violent?
- Only mildly. Ember rates the violence in Happiness as mild.
- What did critics think of Happiness?
- Critics broadly praised the film’s fearless grim humor, layered script, and ensemble performances for finding painful humanity within disturbing behavior.
- Which films are like Happiness?
- Films with a similar feel include Welcome to the Dollhouse, The Ice Storm, Magnolia, and The War Zone.
- How long is Happiness?
- Happiness runs 140 minutes.
