Review of Happiness (1998) by Nesbitt10 — 29 Dec 2012

Easily the most disturbing and hilarious film simultaneously ever made; the ultimate of dark humor movies. Happiness is an ensemble drama that skips around between multiple storylines. Three sisters; a young women socially isolated seeking relationships, another happily married with a psychiatrist husband and three kids.

Unfortunately, her husband develops an unnatural fascination for his 11 year old son's male classmate, fantasizes about mass killing in a park, and masturbates to teen magazines. One of his patients, Allen (Seymour Hoffman) has a fascination for the third sister who desperately wants to be raped.

Meanwhile, the apparently stable 40 year marriage of the sister's parents suddenly unravels when he decides he has had enough and wants to be alone. The lives of these people are all connected by the desire for happiness, often from immoral, dark sources.

The only situation that seems out of place is the conversation in a diner where a lady admits to Allen about murdering someone. Clearly this is a film not for everyone due to the disturbing subject matters, it's the zenith of the darkest of dark humor.