HAPPINESS is about three sisters with totally different stories. Joy is freshly rejected by a portly suitor who later commits suicide and can't find a man to take her. Trish is a traditionally happily married woman whose shrink husband is a closet pedophile. Helen is a successful businesswoman with a stable of handsome men but becomes thrilled by her next door neighbor's obscene phone calls. Meanwhile their parents are engaged in a loveless separation in their twilight years.

Although HAPPINESS is critically acclaimed, I found it to be a vastly overrated dark comedy that seemingly would rather titillate rather than push forward its engaging theme. At its core, the film is about the troubles and unhappiness caused by one's need (or lack of need) for sex and how it affects the people around them. This unfortunately becomes all but lost in sensationalist and deliberate forays in trying to be controversial rather than to tell a compelling story.  Admittedly, the film does succeed in producing some memorably funny moments, but once the initial unsettling images lose their ability to shock anymore, the film becomes rather tedious and repetitive. It does have it's moments, but it's all rather unpleasant and dull in the end.

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