Life During Wartime (15)

Dir. Todd Solondz, USA, 2009, 96mins

Cast: Ciaran Hinds, Ally Sheedy, Charlotte Rampling.

Review by Christopher Upton

Anyone who is aware of the work of Todd Solondz knows that the man does not make films that allow the audience to get comfortable. From Welcome to the Dollhouse to Happiness and now a sequel, the intent is always to expose the fractured and broken lives that are hidden in suburban America. Life During Wartime applies a lot of previous techniques in an attempt to draw some kind of conclusion, but ultimately the final product is unsatisfying.

Following on from Happiness , we catch up with the three Jordan sisters and their mother relocated from their native New Jersey. While they may have left the city, the problems that dogged them have not gone easily. As the sisters try to cope with the devastation they have suffered the question of forgiveness, both of themselves and others, becomes a prominent point when Trish's husband is released from prison.

With Happiness Todd Solondz managed to do something that would seem almost impossible; he managed to humanise a monster. He managed to do this by putting acts so reprehensible in a world where everyone was a monster. The three sisters were selfish, uncaring and insensitive and the actions of these three kept the actions of Joy's husband hidden in plain sight. In order to search for forgiveness in Life During Wartime all the characters that return would have to do something rather spectacular.

The first thing noticeable is that Solondz has employed the same trick here as he did in Palindromes ; completely different actors and actresses play the same characters. This can be an effective way of showing how the characters lives have moved on and changed, but on the negative side it acts as a separation from the original characters, leaving casual viewers confused and throwing any sort of pity you may have built up for Joy in the first film out the window.

It's very self referential and the director makes it clear the characters have not changed as much as they would like to believe, through the use of déjà vu inducing scenes. He has given himself a fresh canvas on which to paint bad role models and he does this effectively as the sister's selfish tornado engulfs more victims. This doesn't help the film though, as this has been done before and much more effectively in the original.

The shock is still there and Todd Solondz delights in making the audience squirm as a small child presses his mother for answers about paedophilia, but it just feels false unlike the originals genuine shock. The light awkward touches that the actors put onto the characters in Happiness have vanished here and so has the subtlety that made it so effective.

Once the dark heart of a community has been exposed the only thing to do is to offer some sort of redemption for those that have suffered through it, but if lessons have been learned here then they aren't explicit. It seems slightly at odds to accuse of Todd Solondz of being unsubtle and make this a criticism, but while his previous incantations always had a spark of humanity, that spark has gone out in Life During Wartime .