Happiness
Good Machine | Release Date: October 16, 1998 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
81
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
26
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
Watch Now
Buy on

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
New Times (L.A.)Bill Gallo
Weaving many interconnected plot lines and more than a dozen lives together, this gifted writer-director has fashioned a bleak, brilliant comedy about loneliness, lovelessness, and alienation--a film that constantly upends our assumptions about what is heartbreaking, what is hilarious, and what is both. Read full review
100
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Unnerving because it forces us into uncharted waters: Solondz doesn't tell us how to feel but makes us thrash out our responses for ourselves. In doing so, he has made one of the few indelible movies of the year. Read full review
100
New York Daily NewsDave Kehr
Masterful.
100
Film ThreatRon Wells
Take the safety off of the comedy Magnum called Happiness and put the barrel in your mouth. You'll laugh your ass off as it takes off the back of your head...It could be the best film of the year. At the very least, I'll never forget it. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Like David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, and Paul Thomas Anderson, Solondz revels in ironic pop passion. It's a signature moment when he transforms Air Supply's "All Out of Love" into a geek-love rhapsody. Read full review
100
Film.comErnest Hardy
Tragic, funny and deadpan dark, it's easily one of the best films of the year...It's the brutally unsentimental, intelligent, unflinching heart at the film's core that makes it a marvel.
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
It is not a film for most people. It is certainly for adults only. But it shows Todd Solondz as a filmmaker who deserves attention, who hears the unhappiness in the air and seeks its sources. Read full review
100
Film.comPeter Brunette
One of the most troubling views of the human race I've seen in years. Luckily for us, its depressing, almost pathologically ironic vision is redeemed by the sublimity of Solondz' filmmaking. I first saw the film at Cannes last May and it's haunted me, both for its nastiness and its brilliance, ever since.
100
SalonJonathan Lethem
A masterpiece. Read full review
90
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Thoroughly realized characters and relationships and Solondz's masterful ability to switch the tone from comic to tragic within the same scene help make Happiness a better film than it might have been otherwise. Much better, in fact. Read full review
90
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
Part of this success is due to the exquisitely cast ensemble-composed of actors, not movie stars. To a man, woman and child, the unforced performers are spot-on. Read full review
90
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
Happiness very quickly displays finesse and control, colored by a nearly exultant glee. [9 Nov 1998]
90
The New York TimesJanet Maslin
It has taken only two films, "Welcome to the Dollhouse" and now Happiness, for Todd Solondz to establish his as one of the most lacerating, funny and distinctive voices in American film. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Denby
A brilliant, disturbing, but unstable and half-crazy piece of work. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Corrosively funny yet emotionally devastating. Read full review
88
USA TodayMike Clark
One of the most challenging movies in years. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Sharp, funny, sad and daring as it may be, Happiness is missing something. Its points are often too obvious, its shocks too juvenile. It's impressive but not transcendent. [23 Oct 1998]
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Where Happiness shines, however, is in the series of extraordinary performances given by the members of the diverse ensemble cast. Leading the group is Dylan Baker, whose turn as Bill is astounding. Read full review
80
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
If Hollywood were truly devoted to telling it like it is, Baker would win a special Oscar. To add to the creepiness, Solondz is (as he made clear in Dollhouse) an extremely sensitive director of kids. Read full review
80
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
[Solondz's] blistering, brilliantly transgressive satire is sure to rattle even the most jaded filmgoer. It's also a remarkably compassionate profile of American life at its most desperate. Read full review
80
SlateDavid Edelstein
An aching roundelay, a triumphantly benumbed ensemble farce that mingles condescension and compassion in a manner that's disarmingly--and often upsettingly--original. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleEdward Guthmann
The aftertaste of that father-son scene is so strong, so disturbing, that the riches of Happiness -- its writing, its performances, its trenchant wit -- all seem a bit diminished in the bargain. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
The movie's intentions are as serious and thoughtful as its content is timely and sometimes horrifying. For adventurous viewers only. Read full review
70
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Baker does an amazingly sensitive job with the ticklish part and is joined in this by Read, who is superlative as his inquisitive young son. Read full review
70
Washington PostStephen Hunter
It lacks Altman's wisdom, but its sense of humor is corrosive, if dispiriting, and its willingness to show the human animal at his most disgusting has a kind of anti-grandeur to it. Read full review
63
San Francisco ExaminerG. Allen Johnson
Solondz's greatest success is the pederast, heartbreakingly played by Baker...Had Solondz reached that apex in the other stories, it would have been a masterpiece. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Everyone who likes this movie calls it "disturbing," but what disturbs me most is the self-loathing laughter it provokes, similar to what one often hears at Woody Allen and Michael Moore comedies. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
It's not the subject matter itself that's offensive -- pedophilia is as worthy a topic of investigation as any other. Instead, it's the subject's non-treatment -- we don't learn a thing that rings true. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyManohla Dargis
There's nothing new about this sado-cinema, and nothing much worthy, either. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Solondz's filmmaking style tries to make a virtue out of flatness and distance, and is always more comfortable indicating where feelings would go than actually providing them. Read full review
More From This Movie

81 Critic Reviews

2.6 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL