Murky and humorless.
Comment
03/01/07
Happy Here and Now (2002)
45 %
Reviews Counted: 20 Fresh: 9 Rotten:11 Average Rating: 5.1/10
Runtime: 90 mins
Synopsis: Michael Almareda (NADJA) delivers another difficult and rewarding film that refuses to deliver on genre conventions. This time, a girl (Shalom Harlow) is missing, and her sister, Amelia (Liane Balaban), is desperately trying to locate her. Former CIA agent Bill (Clarence Williams III) is... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Karl Geary, Shalom Harlow, Ally Sheedy, Gloria Reuben, Clarence Williams
Director: Michael Almereyda
Reviews
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
The film is resolutely committed to its affectations of deepness and meaningfulness, but all it imparts is a sense of tediousness.
02/08/06
Casts an undeniable and lingering spell for those who enjoy their cinema spiked with adventure and philosophy.
12/16/05
The future is quieter, emotionally subdued and grayly mysterious, at least in the small hop forward imagined by filmmaker Michael Almereyda.
12/16/05
Top Critic
Even if you're not quite down with Almereyda's digital-age existentialism, he has impeccable taste in music.
12/16/05
This is a droll, laid-back film noir steeped in Crescent City atmosphere and music that culminates in the colliding worlds of genuine and virtual reality.
12/16/05
Top Critic
Michael Almereyda's muddled Happy Here and Now should have stayed on the shelf -- where it's been gathering dust for several years.
12/16/05
Michael Almereyda's futuristic mystery isn't a complete misfire, but it does leave you with the same baffled blankness that suffuses his isolated, techno-dependent characters.
12/16/05
Mourning and gloom weigh upon most of the characters in Michael Almereyda's convoluted and numbingly pretentious Happy Here and Now
12/15/05
This small masterpiece has been one of the best films around not to secure a proper theatrical release.
12/15/05
Set in New Orleans, this collection of loosely connected set pieces was written and directed by Michael Almereyda, who is perhaps best known for his 2000 iteration of Hamlet.
12/14/05
Top Critic
The dialogue is much like a bull session in a college dorm room, right before the munchies set in.
12/14/05
When Amelia takes the full multimedia plunge in the movie's final moments, Happy becomes something inexplicably (and metaphysically) beautiful.
12/13/05
A rich kaleidoscope of sights and sounds that sing out in their vitality.
12/11/05
Almereyda is tripped up by this grab at cosmic profundity, and lands in a sticky puddle of pretension.
12/06/05
To make an inexact analogy, 'Happy Here and Now' is to New Orleans as 'Mystery Train' was to Memphis...
10/27/03
While technically brilliant and gorgeous to watch, Happy Here and Now feels as unfocused and uneven as it is ambitious and intellectually frustrating.
04/27/03
The film transcends what occasionally seems to be oddness for its own sake.
02/16/03
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Related Forums
Does anyone know where I can get a copy of this film?
by: Chippor Snippet 3/5/05
by: Chippor Snippet 3/5/05
IGN RSS Feeds