Happy Endings

By: Lawrence Ferber
In-House Review - Sep 05 2011

In this amazing ensemble comedy about the messes of life, Don Roos opens and heals family and romantic wounds with grace, intelligence and wit. Abortion clinic counselor Mamie (Lisa Kudrow) is having an affair with a studly Mexican masseur, Javier (Bobby Cannavale). As a youth she had sex with her stepbrother, Charley (Steve Coogan), became pregnant, and secretly put the baby up for adoption. Years later, an obnoxious aspiring filmmaker, Nicky (Jesse Bradford), shows up claiming to know her son's whereabouts. This information doesn't come without a catch: Mamie has to let Nicky make a documentary about their reunion. Charley ? now openly gay - and his boyfriend Gil (Testosterone's David Sutcliffe) have another baby-related mystery to solve: did their lesbian best friends secretly use Gil's sperm to conceive an ? Meanwhile, a young singer, Jude (Maggie Gylenhaal), takes up with a rich closeted teenager, Otis (Jason Ritter), and his father (Tom Arnold). Otis, by the way, secretly has the hots for his employer ? Charley! These havoc-filled plotlines and characters ingeniously weave together in Roos' outrageous star-studded comedy, which returns to the scathing and smart territory he mined in The Opposite of Sex. A movie you will surely enjoy again again, Happy Endings is guaranteed to leave you with a smile.

By: Musss7

I've just watched this movie last night and I didn't really realized that the movie was more than two hours. Maybe because Happy Endings is so unique... The assemble of casts is great... althought I can't deny that my attention was fully attracted to Otis, Gil and Charley's characters. Beside of that, each character also had their own life, their own secrets, their own belief, their own hopes and their own dilemmas. The story line is good and clear. I'm always waiting for the text to appear because I know that it will reveals some new informations or surprises... Oh, I've almost forget to thanks tlavideo.com for reviewing this movie. After reading your review of this movie, my heart just pumped up, "Ah, I saw this movie before at the store... I have to buy it!". So, I've bought it... and surely Happy Endings deserved four stars!

By: Rickster

I had little higher hopes for "Happy Endings". It was good, but not great. I felt writer/director Don Roos rehashed a couple of situations from his first film "The Opposite Of Sex", namely the "crass and slutty girl trying to seduce a young gay man for her own selfish and conniving schemes". Don you've been there, done that ! Also, I don't particularly care for his gay characters or better yet...his "treatment" of gay characters in his films. They are for the most part, weak and wimpy ( they are verbally knocked throughout the movie.) Well.., at least his gay characters are 'somewhat' masculine. He does spares us from total stereotypes. Aside from that little peave I think it was a good movie all and all, especially due to Lisa Kudrow...she rocks here with her character growth and I loved her in "Opposite" with all those put-off remarks, She's great !

By: Gay Movie Viewer

Having tremendously enjoyed Don Roos' previous effort, The Opposite of Sex, I snapped up Happy Endings upon release of the DVD without knowing anything about it. Many of my friends like The Opposite of Sex; when I asked them why, each confessed a dislike of Lisa Kudrow. When I noticed she was also in the cast of Happy Endings, and in fact plays one of the main characters, I figured I'd better shut up about mentioning my latest acquisition to some of those friends until I had a chance to watch it. Watch it I did, and I have nothing but good things to report.
Like The Opposite of Sex, Happy Endings revolves around several gay and straight characters, with enough attention paid to both, thus ensuring that the film could appeal to a mixed audience. There is where all similarities end. While The Opposite of Sex had a relatively up-front and focused plot, Happy Endings manages to juggle several plots and subplots all at once. Each of the characters lives touch other characters lives in a style not unlike that of director Robert Altman. In fact, I kept thinking that the pacing and juggling of the subplots was somewhat similar to Short Cuts, or even Crash (in the way that Crash was also compared to Altman's style). Keeping everyone sorted out in my mind became something of a chore, but I generally like films that make you think and keep you on your toes. There were one or two surprises, including several totally unexpected plot twists, and that's always good too. As a comedy I didn't laugh so much as I smiled, and I asked myself more than once, "I wonder what will happen next". As the end credits were rolling I decided I enjoyed my visit with these people, and could easily have managed to sit though even more. How often do you hear that about a movie that runs over two hours?

The cast, which includes Tom Arnold, Jason Ritter and Jesse Bradford give even and professional performances throughout. It worked in a way that good ensemble pieces always work; that is, it would be difficult to single out any one member of the cast, as they worked off each other in such a way that no one could expect all the notices. Another good thing, in my book. I am definitely going to suggest to my friends that they give Don Roos another shot, Lisa Kudrow and all. I can certainly think of worse ways to spend a couple of hours.