Someone Else’s Happiness

Though she’s not entirely successful, writer/director Fien Troch deserves some kudos for trying something a little different with Someone Else’s Happiness; visually, the film is intriguing and compelling (unfortunately, the same can’t be said of the storyline). Like Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia and Rose Troche’s The Safety of Objects, Someone Else’s Happiness follows several disparate characters over the course of several days. However, unlike those films, Troch isn’t quite able to turn these people into figures worthy of our sympathy (primarily because most of them remain sorely underdeveloped). This is particularly true of the film’s central character, a department store saleswoman who’s clearly depressed about something – what, exactly, we never learn. To Troch’s credit, she refuses to pander to her audience – carefully dispensing information over the course of the film’s 98-minute running time – but this strategy ultimately does little other than test the viewer’s patience. The end result is a movie that, while undeniably well made, just never becomes terribly engaging.

** out of ****