Happiness

(Todd Solondz, US 1998, 134 min., 35mm) 

Banned at Sundance for being “disagreeable,” Todd Solondz’s most successful film follows three sisters and the conflicts that mark their suburban lives. Deftly combining tragedy and comedy, Solondz’s characters demand an empathy some viewers were not ready to deal with, offering a vision of pedophiles and sexual deviants that one seldom sees. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Allen, who, unable to act on his sexual fantasies, makes obscene phone calls to his neighbor. As Roger Ebert pointed out, “there is the horrifying suggestion that these characters may not be grotesque exceptions, but may in fact be part of the mainstream of humanity.”