Tara's Indie Pick Flicks

AugTue 2010 Filed in: Tara's Indie Pick Flicks

Life During Wartime

Directed by: Todd Solondz
Starring: Allison Janney, Shirley Hnderson, Ally Sheedy, Cirian Hinds and Paul Reubens
Now playing: IFC Center - 323 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY
Clearview's 1st & 62nd Street - 400 East 62nd Street, New York, NY

In 1998 Todd Solondz made a movie called Happiness, which centered on the lives of three very different sisters living in New Jersey. There was Helen, the self-absorbed, pretentious poet, whose literary success alienates her from the family; Joy, the pathetic guitar-strumming hippie whose latest boyfriend commits suicide after their breakup; and Trish, the oldest sister who “has it all:” a nice house, three kids and Bill, her loving husband who, despite being a great father, also happens to be a pedophile. In Happiness Solondz pushed the limits of comedy, presenting an in-your-face look at suburban life behind closed doors that made just about everyone who watched it extremely uncomfortable, to say the least. I remember walking out of the theater after seeing Happiness feeling conflicted. While I thought it was a great movie, it was also one of the most disturbing movies I had ever seen, and I wondered about Solondz’s motivation in presenting such a provocative work. There was no doubt about the social commentary, but I wondered whether he was just being shocking for the sake of being shocking.

Life During Wartime revisits the sisters twelve years later. Trish (Janney) has relocated to Miami and begun dating again and is thrilled to find that her new beau is mind-numbingly normal. The only threat to her happiness is the lie that she has told her children. While they believe their pedophilic father is dead, the reality is that Bill (Hinds) has just been released from prison and is on a quest to find them. Joy (Henderson) believes herself to be happily married to a man who, despite a history of drug abuse and making lewd prank phone calls to women, appears to want to make a change for the better. When she discovers that there is still one vice he can’t let go of, she flees to the unsteady comfort of her family in Miami. Joy is then haunted by the ghost of her suicidal former lover (Reubens) and finds herself wondering if breaking up with him (and indirectly causing his suicide) wasn’t a terrible mistake. She soon realizes that Miami is not the place for starting over and visits her estranged sister, Helen. Helen has cut all ties from her family and moved to LA, where she continues to wallow in her own ego. Extravagantly rich and dating a man named Keanu, Helen has nothing to offer Joy in the way of comfort or advice. As Joy is struggling to find meaning in her shattered life, Bill travels across the country in search of his oldest son. The question looming for both of them seems to be: Are there some things in life that are simply unforgivable?

In Life During Wartime, I feel like Solondz has matured. While there are still the shockingly inappropriate jokes and severely uncomfortable moments we can expect from him, there is also a poignancy in this film that Happiness lacked. Go see it!