What Happened Was...

Name: What Happened Was...
Genre: Drama, Thriller, Comedy, Romance
Released: September 9, 1994
Duration: 91 min
Rating: 71
Cast: Karen Sillas, Tom Noonan

1994

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Generally favorable reviews based on 24 Critic Reviews

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What Happened Was

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Movie Details & Credits

Oscilloscope | Release Date: September 9, 1994 | R

Starring: Karen Sillas, Tom Noonan

Movie Facts:

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize and the Screenwriting Award at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival.

Summary: This darkly humorous film explores the personal psychic landscape of two lonely New Yorkers. Jackie and Michael are coworkers at a large law firm, who decide to meet at Jackie's for dinner one night. As this 'first date' plays out, the audience is guided through a mental minefield of disappointment, desolation, and desperation. TheirThis darkly humorous film explores the personal psychic landscape of two lonely New Yorkers. Jackie and Michael are coworkers at a large law firm, who decide to meet at Jackie's for dinner one night. As this 'first date' plays out, the audience is guided through a mental minefield of disappointment, desolation, and desperation. Their conversation, with its awkward 'small talk', slowly reveals their unhappy lives.… Expand

Director: Tom Noonan

Genre(s): Drama, Thriller, Comedy, Romance

Rating: R

Runtime: 91 min

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Critic Reviews

Jay Carr

What Happened Was nails contemporary isolation as few films do. It's filled with acute insights and observations of the wary yet hopeful circling that people do in conversation on a first date. It's a gem of a chamber play. [17 Sep 1994, p.37]

Michael Sicinski

A haunting, expressionistic portrait of two lonely souls who have reached out for companionship and instead found themselves on a proving ground, where they are mercilessly denuded of their protective lies and self-deception. Read full review

David Ansen

The faces of Noonan and Sillas reflect everything they're feeling. This disquieting duet of high anxiety rests entirely on their shoulders, and they're superb. [12 Sep 1994, p.60]

Shawn Levy

The film may have its troubled spots, but its poignant depiction of human tenderness more than compensates for them. [18 Nov 1994, p.17]

Edward Guthmann

What Happened Was . . . isn't always easy to watch. Like a Beckett play, it doesn't spare its characters, but strips bare their insecurities, their fear of rejection, their essential isolation and foolishness. [07 Oct 1994, p.C3]

William Arnold

After a slow start, these two characters absolutely absorbed me. The drama develops a strong (and not altogether pleasant) voyeuristic appeal and the performance of Karen Sillas (a regular of the Hal Hartley movies) gradually becomes one of the most devastating and original performances I've seen by an actress in a movie this year. [07 Oct 1994]

Melissa Pierson

It’s hard to believe that these two people, so dissimilar in every way, would be attracted to each other in the first place. It’s even harder to listen to the drone of the numbingly unsympathetic Michael (Noonan, also the movie’s writer and director). When there are only two characters on screen, you’d better rouse concern for both so your viewer is not fatally tempted by the stop button. Read full review

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Brickwall_

May 1, 2023

You could lop the first 10 or so minutes off of this entirely without changing anything. The opening really feels like front-loaded killing time to reach 90 minutes (and couldn't be more cliche with the character waking up in bed and turning off her alarm clock), but what follows is anYou could lop the first 10 or so minutes off of this entirely without changing anything. The opening really feels like front-loaded killing time to reach 90 minutes (and couldn't be more cliche with the character waking up in bed and turning off her alarm clock), but what follows is an excellent 80-minute drama and dual character study. Tom Noonan and Karen Silas are both fantastic, not to mention the impressive work Noonan does as the writer and director.

As a single-location piece, this is all about character and performance, and those aspects fully deliver. The two feel as natural as could be and capture this type of awkward energy exceptionally well to the point of becoming uncomfortable to watch at points. This is very much a filmed play, which I know rubs a lot of people the wrong way but that never really bothers me. Your mileage may vary. Noonan keeps things just a tiny bit more visually interesting than a real-time drama set entirely in an apartment could have been.

The titular storybook sequence where Noonan starts hearing things from the dolls and seeing movement in the dollhouse seems pretty out of place tonally and stylistically within the rest of the film. I enjoyed how strange it was, and, obviously, it's not literal, but it really doesn't mesh with the overall piece.

The biggest drawback to me is that the characters become their most interesting selves with their two big monologue reveals, but then the movie just ends immediately afterward. There was so much unexplored potential left on the table that went disappointingly unseized. Ditch those useless first 10 minutes and give me 10 extra minutes at the end that dive deeper into those final revelations and all of the inherent baggage and drama that comes with them.… Expand

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