Weird Potpourri
Potpourri is a mix of stuff with little logical connection amongst the mix. This movie pot revolves around two married couples one of which has moved into a rental house (in isolated Norway) that is next door to it's owners - also a married couple. An incongruous assemblage. The couple that moved in are highly educated with an adopted young African son. The owning couple, less educated, has a son who mercilessly torments the other boy because he's black and withdrawn most likely because he's suddenly with white parents in snowy white Norway. The two couples each have their secrets which, predictably, concerns sex and compassionate understanding thus the movie's tension. Resolution comes in some surreptitious sex (little is shown). There's no tele or radio but there is some wireless web access. They interact by a few shared dinners followed by awkward after-dinner guessing games. Singing in the nearby town's choir is the only activity we see outside of the homes but plays an...
HAPPY, HAPPY Is Mostly Everything But
I found HAPPY, HAPPY a bit of a quandary. It's a film that's not quite certain what it wants to be, except possibly to be labeled with the adjective "original," which it isn't all that much. Someone over at Film.com apparently found it "hilarious and incisive," which it really wasn't, either. Parts of the film clearly are intended to be humorous - maybe quirkily charming in some foreign-ish, philandering way - but it's entire leaps and bounds from either "hilarious" or "incisive." And someone at Variety apparently dubbed it "a winning comedy" ... but winning at what? Drama? Comedy? Melodrama? Contemporary marital horror nightmare? What?
At best, HAPPY, HAPPY is a character study in exaggeration, as none of these characters came off feeling all that legitimate to me. According to the film's press materials: "Family is the most important thing in the world to Kaja" ... yet, twenty minutes into the film, Kaja apparently believes performing oral sex on a near-total...
Slow but compelling
The pace of this film will be too slow for some people, but I found it to be interesting and engaging, and I wanted to see what would happen next (don't read too many reviews; there are unmarked spoilers among them!).
The main character, Kaja, sings "Amazing Grace" on Christmas Eve with her church choir near the end of the movie, and I found the symbolism of the lyrics to be particularly appropriate.
Though not all the issues are revolved (or even addressed) by the end of the film, and it's certainly not a neat and pat ending, it is, nevertheless, satisfying and hopeful. I'm a very harsh movie critic, so even though I've only given it three stars, to me, that means that it's a solidly watchable film.
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