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When we last left the members of the extended Jordan family -- sisters Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle), Trish (Cynthia Stevenson), and Joy (Jane Adams) and their retired parents Mona (Louise Lasser) and Lenny (Ben Gazzara) -- they were dealing with depraved stalkers, sex maniacs, perverts, pedophiles, and a prepubescent son desperate to ejaculate. Now writer/director Todd Solondz has decided to create a sequel (of sorts) to his 1997 darkly comic take of familial dysfunction Happiness with the equally unusual Life During Wartime. Of course, he does something very interesting here. Instead of hiring the same actors to recreate their characters, the filmmaker has found an entirely new cast to bring these lives of post-modern quiet desperation to the screen once again -- and the results are electrifying.
After leaving her ex-con husband, Joy (now Shirley Henderson) seeks refuge in Florida with her mother (now Renee Taylor) and her older sibling Trish (now Allison Janney). Things have worked out well for the latter since her child molesting husband Bill (then Dylan Baker, now Ciaran Hinds) was caught and went to prison. Her eldest son Billy is now in college, and younger son Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder) is about to be Bar Mitzvahed. She's also seeing a new man (Michael Lerner) who is beyond normal. Trying to piece her own life together, Joy hallucinates the visage of a dead suitor (then Jon Lovitz, now Paul Reubens) who torments her. Running off to California, she finds little sympathy from a distant Helen (now Ally Sheedy), who's become a very famous writer. When Bill is released and returns to reconnect with his family, he finds little forgiveness, or reason to forge ahead.
Using the theme of absolution like the scab on a festering sore, Solondz throws aside the crude scatology of Happiness to make Life During Wartime a celebration of endurance. Granted, these characters are no more settled than when we first saw them, sexual psychosis and social maladjustment marking their every action. But instead of dealing with shock and scandal, Solondz has turned political and what he has to say is a far more accurate reflection of America circa 2010 than his previous film was as a look at life in 1997. By turning the bogeyman from the past into a passé concept, by instead focusing on terrorism and homosexuality as the new "evils", the filmmaker finds exceedingly fresh material. New performers aside, these are the same Jordans, except now they are obsessed with religious fanaticism and gender orientation instead of molesters and interpersonal monsters.
Once again, the hippie hopeful Joy is our sad center, and Henderson channels the childlike madness that previous player Adams brought to the complicated part with ease. By making her meek and easily manipulated, Solondz hides her true strength -- no matter the situation, she survives. The same can't be said for Janney's cut-and-run matron, a woman so screwed up by the situation with her jailed ex that she confuses and corrupts her own children. In this haphazard household, Timmy's tentative grip on the truth rules the roost. Afraid of becoming "gay", he takes his mother's misguided message as a kind of proactive philosophy. Throughout the film, Solondz will rely on the boy worried about his "manhood" to become the voice of hysteria when calmer heads clearly should prevail.
Sadly, others among the Jordans get little update. Sheedy's Helen is still a harsh angry bitch, but her one scene does not a successful redux make. Similar, the entire subplot involving the disintegrating marriage of Mona and Lenny is tossed aside with a single sentence. Bill, such a strong if sick presence in Happiness, is now reduced to a ghost, although Hinds has a terrific scene with his adult son that suggests what could have been done with his reemergence. It's almost as if Solondz himself has moved on, no longer interested in perversion and its placation. Instead, Life During Wartime is about the brave face -- and the consistent failings behind it. While not as outrageous as its origins, this creative curiosity is just as amazing. By substituting post 9/11 hysteria for seedy suburban secrets, he's reinvented the Jordans, as well as our reaction to them.
After leaving her ex-con husband, Joy (now Shirley Henderson) seeks refuge in Florida with her mother (now Renee Taylor) and her older sibling Trish (now Allison Janney). Things have worked out well for the latter since her child molesting husband Bill (then Dylan Baker, now Ciaran Hinds) was caught and went to prison. Her eldest son Billy is now in college, and younger son Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder) is about to be Bar Mitzvahed. She's also seeing a new man (Michael Lerner) who is beyond normal. Trying to piece her own life together, Joy hallucinates the visage of a dead suitor (then Jon Lovitz, now Paul Reubens) who torments her. Running off to California, she finds little sympathy from a distant Helen (now Ally Sheedy), who's become a very famous writer. When Bill is released and returns to reconnect with his family, he finds little forgiveness, or reason to forge ahead.
Using the theme of absolution like the scab on a festering sore, Solondz throws aside the crude scatology of Happiness to make Life During Wartime a celebration of endurance. Granted, these characters are no more settled than when we first saw them, sexual psychosis and social maladjustment marking their every action. But instead of dealing with shock and scandal, Solondz has turned political and what he has to say is a far more accurate reflection of America circa 2010 than his previous film was as a look at life in 1997. By turning the bogeyman from the past into a passé concept, by instead focusing on terrorism and homosexuality as the new "evils", the filmmaker finds exceedingly fresh material. New performers aside, these are the same Jordans, except now they are obsessed with religious fanaticism and gender orientation instead of molesters and interpersonal monsters.
Once again, the hippie hopeful Joy is our sad center, and Henderson channels the childlike madness that previous player Adams brought to the complicated part with ease. By making her meek and easily manipulated, Solondz hides her true strength -- no matter the situation, she survives. The same can't be said for Janney's cut-and-run matron, a woman so screwed up by the situation with her jailed ex that she confuses and corrupts her own children. In this haphazard household, Timmy's tentative grip on the truth rules the roost. Afraid of becoming "gay", he takes his mother's misguided message as a kind of proactive philosophy. Throughout the film, Solondz will rely on the boy worried about his "manhood" to become the voice of hysteria when calmer heads clearly should prevail.
Sadly, others among the Jordans get little update. Sheedy's Helen is still a harsh angry bitch, but her one scene does not a successful redux make. Similar, the entire subplot involving the disintegrating marriage of Mona and Lenny is tossed aside with a single sentence. Bill, such a strong if sick presence in Happiness, is now reduced to a ghost, although Hinds has a terrific scene with his adult son that suggests what could have been done with his reemergence. It's almost as if Solondz himself has moved on, no longer interested in perversion and its placation. Instead, Life During Wartime is about the brave face -- and the consistent failings behind it. While not as outrageous as its origins, this creative curiosity is just as amazing. By substituting post 9/11 hysteria for seedy suburban secrets, he's reinvented the Jordans, as well as our reaction to them.
