Review of Happy Endings (2005) by John A — 29 Sep 2006

Happy Endings is an interesting little movie with a huge list of stars including Lisa Kudrow and Maggie Gylenhaal. The movie deals with several people who are all different who are put through rough patches in their lives and how they deal with it. The movie has a really interesting narration method in which instead of a person talking they put words on the screen and it is really interesting. The chracters are all likable except for maybe one or two of them.

The movie follows a woman (Lisa Kudrow) who gave up a child to adoption years ago, a widower (Tom Arnold) and his gay son (Jason Ritter) who both are affected by a drifter (Maggie Gylenhaal) who makes herself at home with them. A gay couple who try to figure out if their lez friends actually used their DNA to help make their child. Then of course there is the the blackmailer who who wants to make a documatentary about the woman who gave up her kid. Then there is the massager (Bobby Canavale) which the documentary is being made about how he gives women "happy endings" with every massage.

The movie deals with a lot of modern issues such as gay parents and abortions. The movie is interesting and at times dramatic, but mostly it is funny. As far the the happy endings most of the characters get semi happy instead of full on happy endings. Nobody dies in this movie so it isn't a chessy tear jerker (They mention this in the start so I didn't ruin anything.). So the movie has different enough style and enough laughs to recomend it as a must see for fans of movies such as Magnolia, Crash (2005 version), or anything along those lines.