- Running time:
- 98 minutes
- Rated:
- R
- Cast:
- Shirley Henderson -
- Joy Jordan
- Ciarán Hinds -
- Bill Maplewood
- Allison Janney -
- Trish Maplewood
- Michael Lerner -
- Harvey Weiner
- Chris Marquette -
- Billy Maplewood
(0 ratings)
Meet the Jordan sisters: They're depressed, despondent and lugging around some crazy emotional baggage. Trish (Allison Janney) is trying keep her family together, unaware that her pedophile ex-husband (Ciarán Hinds) has just been released from jail. Helen (Ally Sheedy) is a successful Hollywood screenwriter with a bitchy knack for self-aggrandizement and sisterly condescension. And Joy (Shirley Henderson) is an emotionally fragile musician with a perpetually awful dating streak. Not very good role models for Trish's son Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder), a lost kid trying to make sense of his father-less world.
The buzz: “Wartime” is the sequel to 1998's “Happiness,” writer-director Todd Solondz's controversial tale of sexual and moral corruption, and picks up 10 years after the shocking events of that first film. But in a ballsy creative choice, Solondz has completely recast his sequel with all-new actors. (The original featured Philip Seymour Hoffman and Lara Flynn Boyle, among others.) It's a canny twist on the casting stunt that he used for his last film, 2004’s “Palindromes,” in which eight actors played the same 12-year-old girl.
The verdict: "Just a little déjà vu"—that's how Joy describes a dinner she's having with her pervy boyfriend at the beginning of the movie. But it also perfectly describes Solondz's darkly funny homecoming for "Wartime," in which he revisits the depraved themes of "Happiness" with the same degree of deadpan humor and—yes—sympathy. Because the whole cast has been switched up, moviegoers who've seen the first film will feel like they're looking at a shattered reflections. (Trust me: You'll want to watch "Happiness" before seeing this one.) And that's exactly what I suspect Solondz wanted to achieve: a jagged and skewed image of family dynamics gone horribly awry…and horribly funny. (At one point, Trish—single and dating—tells her son that a man she met "made me wet.") There's a funky kind of cinematic sadism going on here—Solondz can’t seem to resist torturing these characters. And yet, ironic as it may seem, Solondz reveals himself as a kind and compassionate optimist. By rebooting his cast for "Wartime," he seems to be saying: Rebirth is possible even in the face of tragedy and misery.
Did you know? Solondz frequently brings characters from previous films into his latest work. In "Wartime," Trish dates a man named Harvey Weiner—the patriarch in Solondz's breakout film, "Welcome to the Dollhouse."
Movie Trailer:
SHOWTIME LISTINGS
Movie theaters and showtimes for Life During Wartime in Atlanta.
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