Life During Wartime (2010) NYT Critics' Pick

[lsanderson]

From left, Ally Sheedy, Paul Reubens, and Shirley Henderson in “Life During Wartime.”
Shades of ‘Happiness,’ Appalling and Funny
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: July 22, 2010

Should you laugh or cry? Nearly every scene in “Life During Wartime,” Todd Solondz’s sort-of sequel to his 1998 film, “Happiness,” seems to pose this question, pitching the viewer into a queasy limbo between mirth and anguish. The characters are almost uniformly miserable — the one named Joy perhaps most of all — and whatever joy they do encounter is likely to be short-lived. And yet the painful conversations that make up the bulk of the film’s action are structured like mordant jokes. These people are so clueless, so bad at communication, so ridiculous that they must be suffering for our amusement. More