Something Like Happiness (2005)
DVD5 | VIDEO_TS | NTSC 16:9 | 01:41:47 | 4,25 Gb
Audio: Czech AC3 2.0 @ 224 Kbps | Subtitles: English
Genre: Drama
DVD5 | VIDEO_TS | NTSC 16:9 | 01:41:47 | 4,25 Gb
Audio: Czech AC3 2.0 @ 224 Kbps | Subtitles: English
Genre: Drama
Director: Bohdan Sláma
Monika, Tonik and Dasha grew up together in the same housing project on the outskirts of a small industrial city. Now the childhood friends are adults, each struggling with feelings of desire and loneliness, longing and failure. Though none would admit it, each craves something the other has and it's these unspoken longings which bind them in difficult, complex, passionate friendships. Vibrant and deeply affecting, Something Like Happiness is a funny, tender and very human drama of passions and lives half-understood and veering out of control, shadowed by tragedy, shot through with hope.
IMDB - 7.1/10 from 1,104 users | 19 wins
Also Known As: Stestí (2005) (Original title)
The characters in Bohdan Sláma’s new film, Something Like Happiness, wear an expression of grim resignation across their faces. Mired in a dingy industrial town in the Czech Republic, they seem utterly lacking in hope or ambition. This may sound dire, but Sláma is careful to allow humor to filter into these scenes of everyday dreariness, crafting a portrait of a society that owes much to the British kitchen-sink dramas of the postwar years. Despite this impressive milieu, however, the director stumbles, crafting a picture fueled not by his characters’ rage and frustration (as films like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and Look Back in Anger were), but by their complacency. Although there’s something to be said for the latter approach, in this case it does little more than stir up the same feeling from the audience.
Adding to the sense of claustrophobia that permeates the characters’ lives, a large portion of the action takes place in the housing development in which they live. Twenty-something Monika still has a bedroom in her parents’ apartment, but dreamily anticipates the day her boyfriend Jara, who has recently moved to San Francisco, will invite her there to live with him. While she is waiting, she spends most of her time with Tonik, Jara’s best friend who is secretly in love with her, and Dasha, the troubled single mother who lives above her. As Dasha’s mental condition deteriorates (unlike the others in her building, she has trouble accepting her bleak situation), Tonik and Monika find themselves stepping into the role of surrogate parents to Dasha’s two small children.
In a way, Something Like Happiness is a fundamentally conservative film. Tonik and Monika, with their understated goodness, are positioned as the moral centers of the film, their blithe willingness to settle extolled. Dasha and Jara, on the other hand, are either dismissed or derided for their ambitions for a life beyond their grimy surroundings. Sláma’s attitude towards Jara’s migration to California may well be a response to the vast influence the U.S. has wielded on Eastern Europe since the fall of Communism, but his harsh handling of Dasha’s mental breakdown and its aftermath remains somewhat inexplicable.
Still, the film gains steam as it moves along, allowing Sláma to showcase his talent for rendering quiet moments of affection between his characters. In the end, it is these, along with the gloomy urban landscapes, that make a lasting imprint.
Stestí, shown at the International Filmfestival Rotterdam as 'Something Like Happiness' is by no means a comedy - it's only classification should be 'drama' as that is what it is. And excellent drama at that.
The story is simple in its outline: Monika, Dasha and Tonik are friends - or at least they all were at some point. At the movie's opening we learn that Monika's boyfriend left for the United States and will send for her as soon as he is settled, though no concrete time frame has been talked about. While her mother is supportive, her father apparently doesn't care much for the guy. He does, however, get along well with her longtime friend Tonik, and the two enjoy the occasional bottle (or two) of spirits. Tonik lives with his aunt in a house next to the factory his dad works for. The house is falling apart, but the aunt won't sell out to the factory, and this has strained relations between father and aunt, and thus father and son. Unfortunately, Tonik doesn't have a penny to his name, and they can barely afford electricity. Then there is Dasha, the catalyst of the story. She has two children by a man who has long since left, and is in love with a married man. Dasha is mentally unstable, has been so for some time, and doesn't know very well how to care of her two children. Tonik and Monika regularly help out and are like an aunt and uncle to the children, but Dasha's mental problems make her scornful, even hateful towards her friends. Then Dasha has a breakdown and both Monika and Tonik need to decide how to balance their own needs with those of Dasha and her children.
I can't (or rather won't) tell you more about the story - I do not want to include spoilers. But while the story so far sounds grim, and the surroundings look equally grim and grey, with the smoking nuclear plant dominating the scenery, there is levity and a surprising amount of warmth in this movie as the characters strive towards something like happiness.
The acting is very natural, it feels like Monika and Tonik play themselves rather than their roles, and there is real chemistry between the two. The roles of the respective parents should not be overlooked either, although I am sorry to say I don't have a list of the full cast to give them the credit they deserve.
Most striking is the perseverance of these wonderful people considering the circumstances they live in and the blows life deals them. There is an admirable strength of character to Monika and Tonik and you can't help but feel for them and wish them well.
The movie feels longer than it actually is. Not in that it gets boring, on the contrary, had it been an hour longer I would still have enjoyed watching it, because the characters are so interesting. It feels long because of the range of events covered. By the end of the film, you feel you've come to know the characters, almost as friends. A part of me would like to contact the director and ask if they're alright. It's funny how real fiction can be.IMDB Reviewer
Special Features:
- Short film: BACKSEAT BINGO (Directed by Liz Blazer)
- Biographies
- Trailers
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