Watching "Happily"

I've been mentally compiling a list of indie films that fill a category I like to think of as modern episodes of "The Twilight Zone."  These are character pieces that have genre elements, like "The One I Love," "Marjorie Prime," and "Colossus."  They're limited in budget, but try to say something about the human experience through interesting allegorical devices.  Most of them aren't all that successfully executed, but they usually manage to raise thoughtful questions in a novel manner, so I always enjoy them when they pop up.

"Happily" is one of these, about a married couple, Tom (Joel McHale) and Janet (Kerry Bishe), who are still madly in love after fourteen years together.  They're obnoxiously in love.  They're maybe even unnaturally in love.  This all comes to a head when they're disinvited from a couples' weekend for being too insufferably happy together, and then visited by a mysterious man (Stephen Root) who seeks to correct the aberration that is their relationship.  One thing leads to another, and Tom and Janet end up reinvited to the couples' weekend, which gets very strange very quickly.

The ensemble is the best part of this film, which includes several comedic actors like Natalie Zea, Paul Scheer, Natalie Morales, Jon Daly, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Charlyne Yi, and Al Madrigal as the other couples and friends.  "Happily" would have been a much worse film if it weren't for the participation of these players, who do so much to infuse life into the characters.  They're fun to hang out with, and feel like they're all really friends.  And they do all the vital, nonverbal work of showing how Tom and Janet are such outliers from the friend group. It's fun tracking all of the dysfunctional relationships through the film, and everything builds to one of those delightful scenes where everybody's secrets come out.  The film maintains an interesting mix of comedy and moody, existential horror.  There are several ominous shots of fancy architecture set to electronica music, conjuring echoes of '70s Italian giallo flicks, and a few trippy dream sequences and brushes with nocturnal horror.        

I really loved the first two thirds of "Happily."  I liked the very specific, very weird mood and tone.  I liked all the strange concepts that are set up,  and was looking forward to how they would pay off.  And they do pay off, but not in a way that's very compelling or satisfying.  Taken in isolation, the ending isn't bad, but it's the ending to a different kind of film, a more multifaceted ensemble film where Tom and Janet didn't have nearly the amount of narrative emphasis that they had for the previous hour.  I can't help feeling that "Happily" would have worked better if Natalie Zea or Paul Scheer were the main character, and we'd seen all the events play out from their point of view, so certain events were more ambiguous.  And while I'm okay with what the film decides to do with the supernatural elements and Stephen Root's character, the final resolution is messy and undercooked.   

This is the feature directing debut of  BenDavid Grabinski, who has some very appealing takes on this material, and is able to make the story feel timely without making it feel too obviously of its time.  I like how his take on romance is simultaneously very idealistic and very cynical, and how he addresses adult relationship issues and friendship dynamics that you don't see much of on the big screen.  So, while I don't think that "Happily" really works as a feature, I'm not sorry that I watched it and I'm looking forward to whatever Grabinski wants to make next.  He got about 80% of the way to making something really good this time out, so I'm rooting for him to get some more chances in the future.          

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