Wesley's F-ed Up Movie of the Week #1

Let's face it: there are a lot of really messed up, crazy, and insane movies out there. For some reason or another, I've seen a lot of them. After all, I tend to watch lots of movies and all different kinds of them. I'm not really sure what makes me rent these kinds of films (especially today's choice) but I usually manage to watch them all the way through. So, forever how long I can do it, I'm going to post this column once a week (not necessarily on Tuesday- unlike Speech of the Week, this column will not be day specific) and focus on some of the more obscured and messed up films that I've seen in my twenty-one years of life. Here it is folks: Wesley's F-ed Up Movie of the Week.

This week's f-ed up movie is a little film called Happiness. Here's a pretty good summary of the film that I got from Netflix:

"A bittersweet film that belies its title, Happiness draws a dark portrait of a supremely dysfunctional family where each member battles personal demons. Plotlines include a prank telephone caller (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who's afraid of women and a preternaturally cheerful woman (Jane Adams) who's unable to make a physical connection. With other stories revolving around pederasts and masturbation, this remarkable movie is not for the squeamish."

So, I guess you may be asking yourself, where did I find Happiness? Well, I was looking through Amazon for a movie of interest (honestly I cannot remember what it was now) and Happiness just happened to be one of the movies that was recommended to me by site. After clicking on it, I remember seeing the infamous prank phone call scene (which I've posted below) not too long ago on some internet site. Due to that scene (which is actually pretty funny because of Hoffman's reactions), I decided to Netflix the film. Let's just say it was a strange, late night film watching experience. 

(Note: All of these film clips are NSFW. After all, this is a messed up movie. Also, there's some random Spanish subtitles.)

So yeah, that should give you a hint of what this movie is like. Although a lot of it is kind of funny (in an extremely dark humor way) a lot of it is some of the most disturbing stuff I've seen in a while. As the summary states, the film centers around one family (three sisters, their mother and father) that is extremely (though realistically) disfunctional and all the truly messed up people that they come into contact with in their everyday lives. 

The most engaging (and disturbing) sub-plot of the film dealt with Trisha Maplewood (Cynthia Stevenson), a woman with seemingly the perfect life and family, and her marriage to psychiatrist Bill Maplewood (Dylan Baker), who is secretly a pedophile. I've seen Baker in a couple other films than this but never has he been so creepy, conflicted, and effective as he is in this film. The guy really gives a great performance and makes the situation he's in seem even more disturbing and real than it already is. As you can see in the clip above, he fantasizes about shooting up a park while listening to patients tell him their own problems while in a therapy session. It's really messed up but, in a strange way, there's a lot of dark humor in it. Still, the way Baker plays the character is really something to watch. At times, you really feel sorry for the guy (his attempted confession to his wife in bed got to me) and, at other times, you are just simply repused by what he's done. One of the strongest points of this sub-plots is the relationship that Baker shares with his son. While it's very strange in nature (he gets almost too personal at times), there seems to be a lot of love behind it. However, their relationship comes to a head in the scene below, in which his son asks him if it is true that he really is a pedophile. Baker's responses are beyond disturbing. This is probably one of the hardest scenes to watch in any film that I can think of.

So, you must be asking yourself, how did I manage to get through this whole movie? Well, as disturbing as it may appear to you (especially if you were brave enough to watch those scenes), the movie was actually pretty good. Yeah, there were times when I actually considered turning it off because it was so messed up (but, for the record, I have never not finished a movie- doesn't matter how bad it is, I just have to finish it). However, there was always something that keep me into the film. The story-telling (with the interweaving plots and characters) was pretty good and the acting (especially in the cases of Hoffman and Baker) was pretty incredible. Plus, I was kind of just curious just how messed up it would keep getting (the answer: a lot). Plus, a lot of it was actually pretty funny but, unless you can get into dark humor, I doubt you'd get into it. I found the "Andy's Dead" scene particularly funny, which you can see below.

Despite all the terrible and messed up things that occur in this movie, there are some sweeter moments. The "You Light Up My Life" scene with Joy and her Russian student was surprisingly touching (you can see that here, I didn't post it here because of the ending of the clip). There are times when it feels like things are going to end up pretty hopeless but there were times that I felt like the filmmakers were hinting at the fact that hope was indeed possible. And I liked that.

In the end, I couldn't think of a better movie to start this column with other than Happiness. After all, there aren't many films that are as messed up as this puppy. It's got it all: masterbation, prank phone calls, bizarre murders, pedophiles, people cheating on each other, etc. Still, despite all this, the movie is still pretty engaging. Just when you think you're going to be disgusted to the point of having to turn it off, the filmmakers do something to pull you back in. I don't know if I'd ever watch it again but it wasn't the worst thing ever. However, it's definitely not for everyone (and by that, I mean it's probably for about 25 % of the population).

Check it out if you dare.