Life During Wartime (2009)
Average Rating: 6.4/10
Reviews Counted: 97
Fresh: 67 | Rotten: 30
With Life During Wartime, Todd Solondz delivers an unexpected semi-sequel to Happiness in typically uncompromising fashion.
Average Rating: 6.4/10
Critic Reviews: 29
Fresh: 20 | Rotten: 9
With Life During Wartime, Todd Solondz delivers an unexpected semi-sequel to Happiness in typically uncompromising fashion.
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Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 5,894
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Movie Info
Directed by Todd Solondz, this ensemble film tells the tale of a large dysfunctional family. Joy (Shirley Henderson) continues to have problems with her husband, Allen (Michael Kenneth Williams), and looks to her family for advice. A dead former boyfriend (Paul Reubens) continues to try to win her heart from the great beyond. Joy's sister, Trish (Allison Janney), meets a retiree whom she hopes will normalize her chaotic life. A third sister, screenwriter Helen (Ally Sheedy), is full of
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Cast
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-
Michael Kenneth Williams
Allen, Harvey -
Roslyn Ruff
Waitress -
Allison Janney
Trish -
Michael Lerner
Allen, Harvey -
Dylan Riley Snyder
Timmy -
Ciarán Hinds
Bill -
Renée Taylor
Mona -
Rebecca Chiles
Hostess -
Paul Reubens
Andy -
Emma Hinz
Chloe -
Charlotte Rampling
Jacqueline -
Gabriel Quiliquini
Waiter -
Ally Sheedy
Helen -
Rich Pecci
Mark -
Gaby Hoffmann
Wanda -
Carmen Marie Colon Mejia
Sarah -
Fernando Samalot
Eddie -
Meng Ai
Jesse -
Chris Marquette
Billy
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Life During Wartime Trailer & Photos
All Critics (99) | Top Critics (29) | Fresh (67) | Rotten (30) | DVD (5)
I'd never have predicted something this mediocre.
Top CriticLife During Wartime, which feels like a movie made to fulfill a contractual obligation, says nothing new, nothing that Happiness didn't already say, only better.
For all of Solondz's mischief, we sense he likes his unhelpable characters, and that they maybe like each other. A little bit, anyway.
An easy film to dislike, a piece of cake to admire and all but impossible to love. But I think that's part of the intent.
Solondz treats his characters with all the compassion of a child frying ants with a magnifying glass.
The question is: Who wants to watch these people?
A daring tragicomedy revolving around the theme of forgiveness and forgetting in the post-9/11 years.
Strikes the right balance between funny, disturbing and truthful.
works extremely well, especially in the way its challenging material is contrasted by the bright, sunny cinematography, which captures southern Florida in all its gaudy, inferno-ice-cream-colored splendor
A typically horny-thorny Solondzian dramedy...Solondz's is a universe of limitless disappointment. [Blu-ray]
A wonderful, must-own transfer by the Criterion Collection of one of last year's best films.
It feels a little wrong, even perverse, to describe a Todd Solondz film as 'fun'. But Life During Wartime - the sequel to his acclaimed and highly disturbing 1998 picture Happiness - is fun.
Wouldn't the world be wonderful if Inception were the film left to straggle through a two-week run in the art houses, and Life During Wartime got to be the blockbuster?
Definitely not a film for everybody, but (Todd) Solondz fans...will find plenty to chew on as he continues his exploration into the wounded lives of three sisters and their fractured families.
Solondz... might have maintained sympathy for these characters before, but now seems to hate them as much as they hate themselves.
A mere shadow of its predecessor.
A perilous balancing act that the writer-director doesn't quite pull off, though he's populated it with an exceptional cast.
Filmgoers who like their comedy so dark that they might forget to laugh will delight in Todd Solondz's Life During Wartime.
Todd Solondz's "Life During Wartime" is full of characters who make the same mistakes over and over again, unable to change their bad habits. He must know just how they feel.
I don't know if this is a negative thing to say about a Solondz film, but there are ultimately glimmers in this one of what could almost be described as hope.
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Latest News on Life During Wartime
October 15, 2010:
Walken, Farrow, and Blair Ride Solondz's Dark HorseThe cast of Todd Solondz's next feature, "Dark Horse," is coming together: Christopher Walken, Mia...
July 23, 2010:
Critics Consensus: Salt Is Moderately TastyThis week at the movies, we've got a spy on the run (Salt, starring Angelina Jolie and Liev...
July 19, 2010:
Todd Solondz Nurtures His Indie CredTodd Solondz's movies have always provoked, and his latest, "Life During Wartime," is no exception....
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Foreign Titles
- La vida en tiempos de guerra (ES)
Friends, family, and lovers struggle to find love, forgiveness, and meaning in a war-torn world riddled with comedy and pathos.
REVIEW
Director Todd Solondz takes the various dysfunctional characters of his earlier film, "Happiness", recasts them, and places them in "Life During Wartime". This facial reshuffling then becomes an enquiry on Solondz's part: have these people changed? Are major personality or life changes even possible? How contingent is human behaviour? How reversible are past scars? "Happiness" was a jet black comedy which jumped from paedophilia to suicide to masturbation to divorce to murder, deftly hopping from taboo to taboo with a kind of soul crushing cruelty. For Solondz, everything is a masquerade, humans are petty, pathetic and cruel, and every good deed merely masks something horrible at worst, hypocritical at best.
With "Wartime" Solondz tries to recapture the cringe comedy and satirical edge of "Happiness", but fails entirely, modern audiences now desensitised to his particular brand of sensationalism. With the taboo shocks out the window, his audience is then free to focus on the film's clunky message: the past scars the future, Solondz says, but all should be forgiven, lest a cycle of animosity, hate, fear and torment be perpetuated. The film then aligns these themes to the events of September the 11th; America as a nation should forgive those who abuse her, as those upon whom pain is inflicted in the film should forgive their tormentors, or themselves if necessary. It's all very reductive, but far from the misanthropy which critics of Solondz often accuse him of spouting. If anything, Solondz's a jaded idealist, his characters all looking for a way out of the rut he keeps digging them deeper into.