Happy Endings

Maggie Gyllenhaal is on the seduction trail.

Herald rating: * * *

Writer-director Don Roos (The Opposite of Sex) loves manipulative, dysfunctional and frank characters, and Happy Endings, his latest comedic drama, is full of them.

Along the line of films such as Magnolia, Roos' characters weave in and out of multiple storylines. It is hard to get this style right, particularly when you're jumping back and forward in time, and although Happy Endings is filled with wonderfully wacky characters and daring storylines, it is too disjointed to nail the format.

Roos sets his observational tone with hand-held camera work and text which regularly slides in halfway across the screen.

Sharing information about each character, snippets of their history, future and what they are thinking is an amusing tactic, even if it feels like a gimmick.

The film starts with 16-year-old Mamie seducing her stepbrother. She becomes pregnant and has an abortion. The idea may sound shocking, and to an extent it is, but it is also portrayed with an abundance of low-key humour - as are most of the rather unusual situations explored in this film.

Mamie, now an adult (Kudrow), is being blackmailed by wannabe documentary film-maker Nicky (Bradford), who demands she tells her secret story about her pregnancy. Her stepbrother Charley (Coogan) is obsessed about the fact that his partner Gil's lesbian friends have secretly used Gil's sperm to have a child.

The most lost of them all is Jude (Gyllenhaal), who, in need of somewhere to crash, seduces her gay fellow band member Otis, then his wealthy father Frank (Arnold). If you think this lot are messed up, it's just the beginning.

Even though the title of the film hints that the conclusions will be relevant, it comes as a surprise and disappointment when Roos takes the Hollywood approach and provides a conventional ending, where each story is nicely wrapped up.

It takes most of the film's 128 minutes before you start to feel anything for the miserable bunch in this film, but even then the feeling doesn't last long.

Although Happy Endings is darker, more original and wittier than much of the Hollywood fare available these holidays, it is also immediately forgettable.

CAST: Lisa Kudrow, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jesse Bradford, Tom Arnold, Laura Dern, Steve Coogan
DIRECTOR: Don Roos
RUNNING TIME: 128 minutes
RATING: M (offensive language, sexual references, drug use)
SCREENING: Rialto