Happiness

Happiness (1998) is a dark comedy from writer-director Todd Solondz — watch it online on iFILM. Three sisters from a New Jersey suburb, their parents, and their neighbours each want something badly. Joy keeps striking out with men. Helen resents her own success. Their brother-in-law Bill (Dylan Baker), a mild-mannered psychiatrist with a devoted family, carries a secret the film names plainly and without flinching.

Solondz runs several storylines at once. Neighbour Allen (Philip Seymour Hoffman) can't say an honest word even to himself on the phone. The sisters' elderly father announces to their mother that he wants out of the marriage. Every character is comic and quietly pitiable at the same time — which is exactly what unsettled audiences and critics when the film came out.

Happiness won the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes in 1998. It remains one of the most unsparing portraits of suburban longing in American independent cinema. Stream Happiness (1998) online on iFILM.