Common Sense Note
Parents should know that his movie includes sexual language and situations (one discreet insinuation of masturbation), drinking, smoking, and some drug use. It features a violent start (a woman is hit by a car), frank discussions of abortion and artificial insemination, as well as characters' lies regarding parentage, sexual orientation, background (for instance, illegal immigration and marriage), and ambitions. Themes are designed for mature viewers, though difficult ideas are here turned into comedy (some of this is bittersweet).
Families who see this movie can talk about its complex relationships between parents and children. Why might Mamie be worried about meeting her son, whom she gave up for adoption 20 years ago? How does Otis' fear of his father's reaction to his homosexuality lead to his flawed decisions? And how does Charley's anxiety concerning Gil's potential fatherhood lead him to jump to conclusions? How does the movie make the case for open communications, as a way to avoid tension and distrust?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
Much like director Don Roos' other films, HAPPY ENDINGS features eccentric characters trying to construct stories for themselves, in particular, stories that will make them feel happy. The movie's interest in storytelling -- as a way to order experience or engender emotions -- is at once formal (as split screens offer textual commentary on events and characters) and thematic (the characters lie to one another and themselves).
The film is organized around three very different characters, each apprehensive that a past or present secret will disrupt their fragile veneers of peace. The first is Los Angeles abortion counselor Mamie (Lisa Kudrow), who opens the film by being hit by a car -- seemingly a very unhappy ending. As soon as she hits the pavement, unconscious and bloody-faced, however, the screen splits, and written text explains that she's not dead, that no one dies in this film (because it's a comedy), and that her story begins some 19 years before. The scene then cuts back to Mamie as a teenager, as she seduces her stepbrother Charley (who will grow up to be played by Steve Coogan). She gets pregnant, her father sends her away for an abortion in Phoenix, and the film cuts back to the present.
Here, Mamie is haunted by that past moment, in that her relationship with her Mexican masseuse boyfriend Javier (Bobby Cannavale) is framed as fiction (she visits him on the job and they have "illicit" sex in his work room); more to the point, she meets an aspiring filmmaker, Nicky (Jesse Bradford), with news that her baby -- which she had, after all -- is now grown up. Nicky will provide her with details if she lets him make a documentary about the reunion; otherwise, he threatens to tell Charley (who still believes she had the abortion). Mamie arranges instead for Nicky to document Javier's life story, though most of this is a lie.
This process raises the question of what constitutes truth, in any subjective or objective sense. And it leads to a second story, centered on Charley, who believes that his boyfriend Gil (David Sutcliffe) has unknowingly fathered a baby by artificial insemination, for their best friends, Pam (Laura Dern) and Diane (Sarah Clarke). Charley convinces Gil to distrust their friends, to believe that they would essentially "steal" the sperm they've told him they would not use, in order to avoid legal and domestic entanglements.
At the same time, Charley's employee, a closeted wannabe rock drummer named Otis (Jason Ritter), has a crush on him. Living at home with his dad Frank (Tom Arnold), Otis believes he has to be straight. He brings the band to the house to rehearse and talk cocky stuff. One evening, they recruit a new singer, Jude (Maggie Gyllenhaal), whom Otis hears singing at Charley's club, and she seduces Otis, observing, "You should try it. You might not be who you think you are." Indeed, this might describe everyone in the film.
Jude also provides a second framing device, alongside the textual comments. When she first sings for Otis, she's angry at another boy, a cheater, and performs Billy Joel's "Honesty," plaintively. At film's end, when the stories seem resolved -- Mamie's been hit by the car, Charley and Gil have faced a calamity, and Frank has proposed to Jude and then discovered her deceit -- Jude sings again, now set apart from the other characters, rejected and moved on to another town. In another, unidentified space, she sings another Joel anthem, "Just the Way You Are." Here, she just seems sad, far from her own desired ending.
Families who like this movie will also like other films about unusual family and romantic arrangements, such as The Opposite of Sex, Lovely & Amazing, or Holiday (1938), or another film that investigates storytelling, Adaptation.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentSexual activity and discussions (abortion, homosexuality, masturbation). |
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ViolenceA car accident. |
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LanguageStrong, in intimate use -- conversations and arguments. |
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Message |
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Social BehaviorCharacters lie and worry about lying. |
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Commercialism |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoDrinking, smoking, some drug use. |
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