Film Review

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

Life During Wartime
Directed by Todd Solondz
Werc Werk Works 10/09 Feature Film
Not Rated

Screening at the 47th New York Film Festival, Alice Tully Hall, Oct. 10, 9:00 pm; Oct. 11, 11:00 am

In this quasi-sequel to his controversial 1998 film Happiness, writer and director Todd Solondz picks up on the lives of three sisters who face ominous challenges in love and at work. They wrestle with baggage from the past and struggle with the question of whether they should forgive or forget hurts they and others have endured.

Joy (Shirley Henderson) has come to an end of her marriage to Allen (Michael Kenneth Williams) who can't get beyond his drug addiction. Equally disturbing are repeated visitations by Andy (Paul Reubens), a former suitor who committed suicide.

In Florida, her sister Trish (Allison Janney) is raising Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder), who is about to have his bar mitzvah. She has not told him the truth about his father, Bill (Ciaran Hinds), who has just been released from prison for pedophilia. He wants to see both sons, including college student Billy (Chris Marquette). The return of her ex-husband puts a damper on Trish's romantic affair with Harvey (Michael Lerner), a nice man who has just gotten a divorce and spurs both of her boys to confront their feelings about their father's pedophilia.

Meanwhile, Joy heads off to Los Angeles for a visit with her other sister Helen (Ally Sheedy), a successful TV writer who is angry about the past and hyper about her work. Not even wealth and fame can blot out the scars and humiliations of yesteryear.

Life During Wartime is an oddly touching drama about three unhappy sisters and those in their orbit. Writer and director Todd Solondz circles around the theme of forgiveness. Although this act is a simple and cogent, it oftentimes is accompanied by a storm of complex emotions. But the end result is something wonderful, or as ethicist Lewis B. Smedes once put it:

"When you forgive the person who hurt you deeply and unfairly, you perform a miracle that has no equal. Nothing else is the same. Forgiving has its own feel and its own color and its own climax, different from any other creative act in the repertoire of human relationships."

As this film points out, people would much rather forget than forgive. Solontz also makes it clear that it is very hard to forgive ourselves and to forgive people who are monsters in the eyes of the world. There is plenty of hurting and hating in Life During Wartime but also a few genuine moments of healing.

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by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat