Very disappointing...

Powerful

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

I am not too happy about Writer-Director Todd Solondz' sequel to his 1998 critically acclaimed 1998 indie film "Happiness". "Life During Wartime" should have been titled "Life During Boretime" because its mind-numbing melancholy tone is a bunch of borea borea! Sure "Happiness" was also melancholy, but it was thought-provoking and compelling; no matter how dreary and repugnant the characters were. "Life During Wartime" plays around with the same characters as the original- sisters Joy, Trish, Helen; pedophile Bill Maplewood straight out of jail; son Billy now in college; plus some new characters including Timmy who is Billy's younger brother and also son of Father Bill. The major shift here is that all these characters are portrayed by other actors; no Phillip Seymour Hoffman, or Cynthia Stevenson, or even Dylan Baker, which all deserved Oscar nominations for their "Happiness" performances. In "Life During Wartime"- Joy is still miserable, Trish is still hypocritical, and Helen is still self-centered. Maplewood is like a dead man walking throughout most of the film, and not like a rehabilitated pedophile striving to change his past ways. The actors do their best, but it was really a battle for them to invoke any authenticity to their characters in their wartime duty because of Solondz' sloppy writing and direction. I am a big fan of Solondz' "Welcome to the Dollhouse" and "Happiness", and included those movies as two of my favorites of the 1990's. But since the millennium, Solondz' archetype style of developing gloomy and despicable characters has run it course; and too many disturbed and sad characters in recent past Solondz' film creations have become a nuisance instead of a revelation. In other words, his Toddatales have become continuous dead-end narratives, instead of insightful character studies. Now some of the performances in "Life During Wartime" were noteworthy including Allison Janney as Trish, Ally Sheedy as Helen, and Paul Reubens as Joy dumpee- Andy. Yes, there is a Pee-Wee sighting in "Life During Wartime" and it's a good one. Reubens' supporting performance as Andy might just very well be the life of "Life During Wartime". OK, I know I need to get a life but I also know that you don't need to get a "Life During Wartime". **Needs Improvement

Life during wartime seems to attempt to make you forget there was a movie before it, I am of course referring to "Happiness",wonderful actors such and Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jane Adams have been replaced by nearly unlikable actors that strain to meet the standard and fall short. To avoid spoilers I'll stay away from the plot, but I have to address that I was shocked by how flat the writing is, and how stale the dialog becomes after only a minute or so. This was difficult to watch, because of how much respect I have for Todd Solondz after I first watched Happiness. It seems that this effort by Solondz was forced, like he didn't want to make this movie, if this effort was genuine than I apologize to him in advance for the following, this is not a very good movie. In closing, I probably won't watch this movie again, but that wont stop me from watching Todd Solondz's earlier, better movies. But don't let this review stop you from watching Life During Wartime, as I always say to each his own.

11 years after Happiness, his poisonous stab at moral absolutism, Todd Solondz returned with this equally bleak sequel, a continuation of the all-American domestic grotesque. The characters return, except now played by different actors (including a bleary Paul "Pee Wee" Reubens), as does Solondz' ability to challenge expectations with disarming directness and surgical precision.This is a less consistent film than its predecessor, particularly in terms of tone. Happiness harboured an almost garish John Waters trash aesthetic, whereas Wartime often shifts into something more sombrely lit and handsome, even entering noir territory at times, as when Ciaran Hinds' Bill and Charlotte Rampling's Jacqueline meet in a whisky-coloured bar to do semantic battle before indulging in a bout of loveless sex.The characters are mostly horror movie monsters masked in the fascia of suburban admissibility - none more so than Trish (Allison Janney), the selfish mad-mom who is delighted by the fallacy of the nuclear ideal, lusting after "normal". Her son, Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder), is the traumatised voice of reason: a humanist on the cusp of corruption. Then there is Joy (Shirley Henderson), a deep-feeling adult alone amidst the animal chaos: frail, fragile and bereft (in mind and body); in search of absent metaphysical guidance; a closed book desperate to do good; desperate to stop pretending any more.Loneliness, rape, suicide and despair all echo in a bubble of carefully constructed sentimentality. Wartime doesn't quite carry the joke all the way. Certain latter scenes, particularly involving Hinds' recently-released Bill, are played disconcertingly straight. But then this is a film about the pathology of forgiveness (the film's former title), the corrosive nature of trauma, and the final consolation of repression and faith - themes in which perhaps even Mr Solondz couldn't find the humour."You die for me and I will know you love me," says Allen (The Wire's Michael Kenneth Williams) from the grave. No one in American cinema is better than Solondz at highlighting fickleness and absurdity of human interaction, and the paradoxes we contrive for ourselves. And although it can be wearying to endure such an indictment, we will always need filmmakers willing to float like faecal matter in Hollywood's homogenous soup.

I would really like to see Todd Solondz produce something on the level of WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE or HAPPINESS again but I'm afraid that I'll just have to settle for watching those earlier works. To be fair, I don't know what he could have done with the characters from HAPPINESS that would have worked better. I revisited HAPPINESS before seeing LIFE DURING WARTIME to refresh my memory. That film crackles throughout with uneasiness. When we laugh, it's to release tension. It's not the cast's fault that this film lacks the same punch. While unrated in the US, my guess is that this would have received a PG-13 or an R for a few exposed breasts. HAPPINESS would have been NC-17 for sure. HAPPINESS was about getting whatever happiness one can no matter the cost to others. This is a film about forgiving and forgetting and moving on. I can certainly forgive Todd Solondz for what he tried to achieve here even as the film fades from memory.