---
title: "Happiness"
year: 1998
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/happiness"
fi1m_id: "happiness"
imdb_id: "tt0147612"
tmdb_id: 10683
wikidata_id: "Q1426532"
fi1m_score: 78
critics_score: 73
critics_reviews: 14
published: "2026-09-13"
updated: "2026-09-18T08:38:20.310353+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Happiness (1998)

Directed by Todd Solondz · 2h 20m · MPA NC-17 · Comedy, Drama

## Identity

Happiness

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/happiness
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** happiness
- **IMDb ID:** tt0147612
- **TMDB ID:** 10683
- **Wikidata ID:** Q1426532
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0147612/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/10683, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1426532

**Fi1m score: 78** · Critics 73 from 14 reviews

*In a sentence:* An evening among people who need company and make staying home alone look increasingly sensible

> Todd Solondz makes suburban unhappiness funny enough to catch us off guard, then difficult to bear. Dylan Baker’s restraint gives the film its force, though the slow pace and repeated humiliations make 140 minutes feel overgenerous.

## Synopsis

In suburban New Jersey, the wish for affection sits alongside desires that cannot be comfortably acknowledged. Joy Jordan (Jane Adams), Helen Jordan (Lara Flynn Boyle) and Trish Maplewood (Cynthia Stevenson) are among those caught up in the unhappiness of family life. Bill Maplewood (Dylan Baker) is an outwardly respectable psychiatrist and father who is sexually attracted to children. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Allen in Todd Solondz’s ensemble comedy-drama, which follows people searching for intimacy while struggling to understand what others want. Loneliness and sexual frustration shape encounters between people who cannot agree on what would make them happy.

## Review

*Happiness* is a funny, distressing and overlong comedy, worth the discomfort if black comedy is your taste. Todd Solondz writes and directs an ensemble of lonely people who are capable of making others miserable. Their respectable appearances give us little reason to feel safe in their company. Solondz wants us to recognise these people even when we would rather stop looking at them. His cast makes that possible, though he sometimes keeps their unhappiness going long after we have understood it.

Dylan Baker’s Bill Maplewood, a psychiatrist and father sexually attracted to children, is the most demanding case. Baker keeps his manner bland and respectable, allowing no comforting distance between this man and ordinary family life. We were horrified by how familiar he seemed. The performance makes us attend to a person we would prefer to dismiss immediately, without making his desires seem any less appalling. Baker holds that difficult position with enough restraint to prevent the character becoming merely a provocation.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, as Allen, gives the loneliness a similar seriousness, even when the writing invites a laugh at it. He helps keep the film from treating sexual frustration as an amusing defect found only in other people. Jane Adams’s Joy Jordan also needs to be more than the object of a joke, and Adams gives her that weight. Solondz’s ear for self-involved speech is sharp. The actors let the need for affection remain audible beneath the things their characters say to make themselves feel better.

Maryse Alberti’s cinematography and Thérèse DePrez’s production design make the drab suburban surroundings oppressive without making them exotic. That plainness is useful: nothing in the way Bill fits into this world offers an easy warning about him. It becomes less useful when the visual sameness begins to flatten distinctions between the other characters. Solondz can seem to have judged everybody before they have spoken, and the performances have to work against that impression.

Alan Oxman’s editing gives the quiet jokes time to turn unpleasant, but too many stretches settle into the same slow pace. At 140 minutes, the film asks for more patience than every part of the ensemble deserves. Robbie Kondor’s music offers little relief from the discomfort, which suits the film. The greater problem is that the repetition makes some cruelties predictable. Once we start waiting for another person to be humiliated, the surprise goes and the scene has less to offer.

As black comedy, the film works because the joke rarely settles what we should feel about the person in front of us. Solondz allows us to feel sorry for people whose behaviour remains intolerable, and rarely supplies a tidy lesson to make that sympathy easier. Yet the film sometimes appears to believe that another humiliation must mean another insight. When a character has no prospect of doing anything except being humiliated again, it becomes harder to care.

Do not choose it merely because it is filed under comedy. Its subject includes sexual harm involving children, and its attention to the adults will be more than some viewers want to bear. If you are prepared for that, watch it with someone who will not expect an easy conversation afterwards.

*Fi1m score 78, published 13 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics admire Happiness, and the praise gathers in two places. The first is Todd Solondz’s control of tone: the reviews describe a comedy that begins in mockery and shifts, without breaking, into sympathy for people most films would not go near. The second is Dylan Baker as the paedophile father, whose performance is named again and again for its blend of blandness and torment, and whose scenes with his son several critics call the emotional centre of the film. The ensemble as a whole is praised, with Philip Seymour Hoffman also mentioned.

The dissent is small in number but sharp. The New Yorker finds the film more repressed than its characters and the notorious father-son conversation untrue, while the Los Angeles Times complains of glacial pace and a distance that keeps the characters at arm’s length. Even some admirers concede it runs long. Later writers argue it deserves better than its reputation for shock.

## Straight answers

**Is Happiness worth watching?**

*Happiness* is worth watching for anyone with a taste for black comedy and a strong stomach for discomfort, and we scored it 78. Todd Solondz makes suburban loneliness funny before making it hard to bear, with Dylan Baker's restrained performance carrying the most difficult material. At 140 minutes, the repeated humiliations outlast their usefulness, and viewers wanting an easy comedy should look elsewhere.

**How long is Happiness, and what is it rated?**

*Happiness* runs 2h 20m and is rated NC-17 by the MPA in the US. It is a comedy and drama film.

**Where can I watch Happiness in the US?**

*Happiness* is not on any streaming or rental service in the US at the moment. Availability is checked daily.

**How violent or frightening is Happiness, and is it suitable for children?**

*Happiness* carries an 18 certificate in the UK and is unsuitable for children or younger teenagers. Its subject includes a father sexually attracted to children, treated seriously rather than sensationally, and the adult characters' sexual frustration and loneliness are examined without relief. It is not violent or frightening in the conventional sense, but many adults will find its subject more than they wish to sit through.

**How does Happiness compare to Welcome to the Dollhouse?**

*Happiness* is the more ambitious and more difficult of the two Todd Solondz films, and [*Welcome to the Dollhouse*](https://film.one/film/welcome-to-the-dollhouse) is the tighter. The earlier film gives adolescent humiliation the same uncomfortable attention while following one girl rather than a sprawling suburban ensemble. Newcomers to Solondz should start with *Dollhouse*; *Happiness* suits those already prepared for far darker adult subject matter.

**What should I watch after Happiness?**

After *Happiness*, try [*Welcome to the Dollhouse*](https://film.one/film/welcome-to-the-dollhouse) (1995, Fi1m 82): Solondz gives adolescent loneliness the same uncomfortable attention, with less narrative sprawl. Then [*The Celebration*](https://film.one/film/the-celebration) (1998, Fi1m 85): A family gathering makes respectable appearances harder to maintain with every speech; and [*The Piano Teacher*](https://film.one/film/the-piano-teacher) (2001, Fi1m 82): Sexual shame and loneliness receive similarly unsparing treatment, with far less laughter.

### Reviews we read (14)

- **The New York Times**, Janet Maslin (90/100, inferred): Solondz establishes himself as one of the most lacerating and distinctive voices in American film with this murderous comedy of manners. The film draws the audience into sharing the ordeal of its most shocking character through an understanding rather than judgmental lens. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/09/movies/film-festival-review-faulty-families-music-easy-listening-dessert-hard-take.html)
- **Slant Magazine**, Chuck Bowen (85/100, inferred): The critic views the film as a caustic, moving, funny, tiresome, and brilliant Molotov cocktail that grapples with human misery and empathy for flawed characters. He singles out the daring, grounded father-son scenes involving the pedophile Bill for their emotional depth and ambiguity. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/happiness-4k-uhd-blu-ray-review-todd-solondz/)
- **The AV Club**, Keith Phipps (85/100, inferred): The film reveals itself as something better than initial ironic scenes suggest, with thoroughly realized characters and masterful tone shifts from comic to tragic. It arrives at a touching and tragic vision of humanity that's hard to forget despite its dark subject matter. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/happiness-1798196226)
- **The Guardian**, Jonathan Romney (85/100, inferred): The critic finds Solondz's ensemble portrait of dysfunctional New Jersey families both darkly comic and morally probing, praising its refusal to offer easy sympathy or condemnation. He singles out Dylan Baker's performance as the paedophile father for its courageous blend of bland normalcy and inner torment. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian/0,,42537,00.html)
- **Time Out**, GA (85/100, inferred): Solondz's brave second feature takes misery and cruelty as given in suburban life and delivers a bible-black comedy of assurance that shifts into despairing human sympathy. The paedophile father's conversations with his son form the emotional backbone. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/happiness-3)
- **Sight and Sound**, Xan Brooks (80/100, inferred): Solondz presents suburbia as a peripheral hell of drab normalcy masking runaway psychosis and taboo desires. The film succeeds through its tense balance of queasy comedy and genuine recognition, with the central performance of the outwardly upstanding child-molesting psychiatrist singled out as key. [Read](http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/74)
- **Empire**, Kim Newman (70/100, inferred): It's a vision of hell but moving and entertaining, with truthfulness and humanity; praises the beyond-black comedy handling of difficult subjects and performances. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/happiness-review/)
- **The Independent** (70/100, inferred): The critic calls it an astonishing tragicomedy that disquiets and affronts but is worth seeing for its honest take on suburban deviancy. Praises the ensemble cast, especially Dylan Baker and Philip Seymour Hoffman. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-the-big-picture-suburban-perversions-1087312.html)
- **Variety**, Todd McCarthy (70/100, inferred): Solondz sustains a tricky tone of low-key morbid humor while exploring taboo territory with moral ambiguity; Baker delivers an amazingly sensitive performance as the central pervert amid an overlong but skillfully made film. [Read](https://variety.com/1998/film/reviews/happiness-dark-side-of-happiness-explores-sexual-taboos-1200453662/)
- **The New Yorker**, Anthony Lane (40/100, inferred): Solondz works on a wider canvas than before but fixates on sex in a way that makes the movie more repressed than its subjects; the notorious father-son scene rings untrue and the film levels everyone into drabness. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1998/10/19/no-picnic)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Kenneth Turan (30/100, inferred): Solondz pushes boundaries with jaw-dropping situations and an impeccable ear for speech but the glacial pace, flatness, and distance keep characters from connecting with viewers despite strong performances. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-oct-16-ca-32889-story.html)
- **Paste**, Soham Gadre (85/100, inferred): The critic argues the film deserves better than its edgy reputation, praising its deep exploration of the suburban underbelly through ironic humor and frank depictions of isolation, loneliness, and contradictory human impulses among the sisters. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/todd-solondz/happiness-todd-solondz-edgy-reputation)
- **Collider**, Thomas Butt (80/100, inferred): The critic praises Solondz's biting satire and nuanced portrayal of flawed characters in suburban America, highlighting Dylan Baker's performance as particularly remarkable, while noting the film's enduring bleak humor and restoration on 4K. [Read](https://collider.com/happiness-4k-hard-to-watch/)
- **Eye for Film**, Angus Wolfe Murray (80/100, inferred): The critic finds Todd Solondz's film a disturbing yet funny exploration of suburban life and sexual abnormality. They praise the sharp performances and the script's biting honesty in exposing hypocrisy. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/happiness-film-review-by-angus-wolfe-murray)

## Details

- **Director:** Todd Solondz
- **Director:** Todd Solondz
- **Screenplay:** Todd Solondz
- **Cinematography:** Maryse Alberti
- **Editor:** Alan Oxman
- **Music:** Robbie Kondor
- **Production design:** Thérèse DePrez
- **Costume design:** Kathryn Nixon
- **Producer:** Ted Hope, Christine Vachon
- **Cast:** Jane Adams as Joy Jordan; Philip Seymour Hoffman as Allen; Dylan Baker as Bill Maplewood; Lara Flynn Boyle as Helen Jordan; Cynthia Stevenson as Trish Maplewood; Louise Lasser as Mona Jordan; Ben Gazzara as Lenny Jordan; Camryn Manheim as Kristina
- **Runtime:** 2h 20m
- **Certificate (MPA):** NC-17
- **Release (the US):** 16 October 1998
- **Genres:** Comedy, Drama
- **Budget:** $3 million
- **Box office:** $3 million

## Where to watch in the US

Not streaming, renting or buying in the US at the last check.

## If you liked this

- *Welcome to the Dollhouse* (1995), Fi1m 82: Solondz gives adolescent loneliness the same uncomfortable attention, with less narrative sprawl. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/welcome-to-the-dollhouse.md)
- *The Celebration* (1998), Fi1m 85: A family gathering makes respectable appearances harder to maintain with every speech. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-celebration.md)
- *The Firemen's Ball* (1967): Petty humiliations accumulate as a communal celebration exposes everyone’s capacity for selfishness.
- *The Piano Teacher* (2001), Fi1m 82: Sexual shame and loneliness receive similarly unsparing treatment, with far less laughter. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-piano-teacher.md)
- *A Serious Man* (2009), Fi1m 84: Another suburban search for reassurance, conducted with cruel humour and stubborn uncertainty. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/a-serious-man.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/happiness