Review: LIFE DURING WARTIME

HAPPINESS, Todd Solondz 1999 tribute to suburban perversion, caused quite a stir upon its release, mostly because of its matter-of-fact depiction of a child molester. Solondz has now made LIFE DURING WARTIME, a sequel to that dark masterpiece and all of the miserable characters in are back, haunted by the past (some literally), and the new film is all about  coming to terms with what went on in HAPPINESS. The Jordan sisters, the three put-upon protagonists of HAPPINESS are back as well as most everyone else but the roles are now recast with different actors. Solondz is the director who cast his central character in PALINDROMES with eight different actresses to prove some kind of creative point and the gimmick with this new film bugged me at first, but by the end of LIFE DURING WARTIME I thankfully embraced the new cast. No one can erase the indelible memory of Dylan Walsh’s perv Bill Maplewood for example, but Cieran Hinds in the role is as forceful and scary as Walsh was soft and benign. LIFE DURING WARTIME is an excellent film and those who thought highly of Solondz’s previous work will not be disappointed with his latest.

LIFE DURING WARTIME finds the Jordans have not only all moved to Miami, but they’ve apparently converted to Judaism. In the first scene, the childlike Joy (a waifish, brittle Shirley Henderson replacing waifish, brittle Jane Adams) is dining with her husband Allen (Michael Kenneth Williams, in for Philip Seymour Hoffman), when their waitress recognizes his voice as an obscene phone caller. Their sad breakup precedes an intensely romantic dinner elsewhere during which Joy’s love-starved older sister, Trish (Allison Janney replacing Cynthia Stevenson), a single mother to two teenage boys falling for the much older and unattractive Harvey (Michael Lerner) . The film’s early scenes set the tone in terms of black humor and uncomfortable dialog, and also put the viewer to work connecting the casting dots (a return visit to HAPPINESS is highly recommended before seeing this. Unless you remember every character’s name, it takes a while to get a handle on who’s who). Much of LIFE DURING WARTIME is seen through the eyes of Billy, Trish’s son who is preparing for his bar mitzvah learns his dad, whom he thought dead was alive and recently paroled. The screenplay is full of clever dialog that brings humor to some heavy issues and bizarre events. With so many characters crowded into a relatively short running time, some actors appear too briefly but all make a significant impression. Charlotte Rampling makes a startling appearance as a new character, a sort of aging barfly honeypot that’s the stuff of one-night-stand nightmares and casting Paul Reubens as the ghost of John Lovitz was certainly inspired.  The third sister Helen has only one scene, but Ally Sheedy (replacing Laura Flynn Boyle but channeling Barbara Hershey) is brilliant as a bundle of bitter anger, a successful TV writer who is angry about the past, caustic about her future, and hilariously nonchalant about her new lover Keanu (!) Even though the film doesn’t try to get beneath the surface of these characters, the unpredictable plot and distinctive performances keep LIFE DURING WARTIME constantly entertaining. Solondz’s ongoing obsession with adolescence and sexual taboos provides expected shock value but his basic themes are honest and compassionate: the effects of trauma and the need for forgiveness. At the end of a movie summer filled with empty sound and fury (I’m talking to you Scott Pilgrim!) LIFE DURING WARTIME is one of the better films of the year.

4 1/2 of 5 Stars