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MOVIE REVIEW
Happy Endings
Rating:
R
Distributor: Lions Gate Films
Released: July 15, 2005
Reviewed by
George Schmidt
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Ensemble Bliss
Filmmaker Don Roos made a splash a few years back in the indie film world with his sharp witted, sarcastic comedy of social ills and sexual morays with "The Opposite of Sex" and in his latest endeavor continues his streak of snarky yet emotionally complex look at the ongoing war between the sexes (and sex in general).
The ensemble bliss congregated in this overlapping LA based dramedy focuses on Mamie Toll (the delightful Lisa Kudrow proving to be the most versatile of all our "Friends"), a woman in flux whose career as an abortion clinic counselor is the least of her personal calamities as her past suddenly resurfaces to haunt her when she is mysteriously summoned to a clandestine meeting in a local coffeehouse where she meets pushy film student wannabe Nicky (Jesse Bradford) who informs her that he knows her dirty little secret: when she was a teenager she got impregnated by her stepbrother Charley (Steve Coogan) and instead of aborting the unwanted child gave it up for adoption with no one the wiser. Nicky's pact is simple: he'll provide the name of her son if she agrees to help him make a docudrama about her journey to find him thinking this will be a shoo-in entry for his audition tape to AFI. Mamie at first is enraged then contemplative and finally caves in to his emotional blackmail, co-producing Nicky's film, along with her paramour Javier (Bobby Cannavale overacting as he usually does with a poor choice in a Latin-tinged accent), a masseur who provides the double entendre of the film's title.
Meanwhile her estranged stepbrother Charley is paranoid that his life partner Gil (David Sutcliffe) may be the unwitting sperm donor to their lesbian couple pals Pam and Diane (Laura Dern and Sarah Clarke respectively) - basically he thinks Gil's donation to a sperm bank was secretly obtained by the women and feels Gil is their son's real father, demanding some unspoken claim to be daddies too.
The third part of the see-sawing narrative includes a gold-digging rhymes with blunt troublemaker named Jude (Maggie Gyllenhall proving to be a finely gifted actress of her generation with talent to spare in making such an ugly character so damn real) who latches onto rich kid Otis McKee (Jason Ritter), a closeted homosexual whose dreams to be a musician are in the balance when his band's lead singer winds up in rehab and forms a defacto relationship with Jude, who only has eyes for using him to get to his independently wealthy businessman Frank (a surprisingly affective Tom Arnold, who frankly had me believing he was a one-hit wonder with his comic supporting turn in "True Lies"; he never did anything for me before or after but here shows some sublime nuances to his easily broad character), a widower who has been looking for another partner to be with for the rest of his life.
Roos manages for the most part to balance the sarcastic wit with some genuine humor and emotion with a deft skillful manner but it feels cumbersome with its three-arc storyline that comes to an unlikely head by the climax and the use of title cards are a tad too prescient yet he has amassed a wonderful ensemble of talent who bring his clever dialogue to fruition.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
