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Endings are only euphemisms in the end.
Happy Endings
kicks off with a wildly jiggling handheld shot of Lisa Kudrow running down a suburban street and sobbing. It's uncomfortably funny because it's 2005 and we're all too jaded and ironic to sit through anything so earnest without tittering. We're still in mid-chortle when something jarringly violent happens. Then, about the time we get our faces readjusted to Serious and Sincere, a split-screen title informs us, "Don't worry, she's not dead. This is a comedy-mostly."
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Mercifully,
Happy Endings
offers plentiful on-screen advice to ease affronted viewers through its emotional switches and tangled plotlines. It's okay if we don't initially like Mamie (Kudrow), the narration reassures us; she's a little uptight because her first husband was a gambler. Now she's dating Javier (Bobby Cannavale), a masseur with a gift for bringing joy into the lives of depressed divorcées-ergo the film's title, or what massage therapists refer to euphemistically as "the full release." Then there's Mamie's stepbrother Charley (Steve Coogan) and his boyfriend, suffering from what looks like a terminal case of monogamous bed-death; Otis and his father Frank (Tom Arnold), who have much more money than sense; Jude (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a singer and gold digger; and finally Nicky (Jesse Bradford), a film student straight out of
Cecil B. DeMented
who threatens Mamie with her darkest secret. And of course the various trajectories of these souls will intersect, however improbably, by the film's end, as is nowadays
de rigueur (Pulp Fiction, Magnolia)
.
Writer-director Don Roos (
The Opposite of Sex
) went a bit wobbly with
Bounce
but here straightens up and flies right, with an almost scary command of narrative and the ways in which it torques character.
Happy Endings
also benefits from strong ensemble work from its male supporting cast; in particular, surprisingly, Mr. Roseanne Barr-in his first sex scene ever, he's insecure, eager and touchingly romantic, trying to get his single-minded partner to gaze meaningfully into his eyes.
As for Gyllenhaal, it's her singing-yes, singing-that will initially arrest most viewers; she has an unexpectedly stripped-down voice (a little hoarse-edged, like Karen Carpenter after a few too many); don't be too embarrassed if you find yourself on iTunes hunting down her versions of "Honesty" and "Just the Way You Are." Her acting is canny, feline and disingenuous; she invites the audience to take Jude at her superficial worst, so she can then do something genuinely vulnerable and confuse everyone all over again. Like Mamie, Jude contains multitudes, and
Happy Endings
acknowledges that we'll never disclose all of our secrets in our lifetimes, even (perhaps especially) to our nearest and dearest.
