Happiness

After his 1995 breakthrough, Welcome to the Dollhouse, director Todd Solondz was courted by a number of studios to make a big-budget film with top stars. Instead, he chose to make this aggressively dark comedy-drama of perversions and twisted lives. Andy Kornbluth (Jon Lovitz) explodes with anger ...more

Easily one of the 1990s' most controversial films, Happiness evoked a broad range of opinions and emotions. Writer/director Todd Solondz, who debuted with Welcome to the Dollhouse, a portrait of suburbia as the site of a young girl's misery, followed it up with this troubling and thought-provoking exploration of the unhappiness that lurks behind the facades of normality. Some viewers objected to (or were impressed by) the frank depictions and descriptions of sex and masturbation, others were ...more