Todd Solondz’s Life During Wartime is a quasi-sequel to his controversial 1998 movie Happiness. Like Happiness the plot revolves around three sisters – Joy, Trish and Helen. Joy is plagued by the ghosts of dead lovers, Helen is“crushed by the enormity of her success” and Trish just wants a man who isn’t screwed up.
Confusingly, the main characters are the same but the actors are different ; I didn’t , for instance, connect Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s Allen with the role played Michael K. Williams (It doesn’t help that I always see the latter as Omar from The Wire).
In explaining his unconventional approach Solondz said: “I was more interested in approaching these characters from a different angle and portraying them in a fresh light, and I wouldn’t have been able to do this if I had cast the same people”.
This is the second time I’ve seen the movie. The first time I hadn’t seen the quasi-prequel. I wouldn’t say you need to see them in the right order but the later movie made a lot more sense this time round.
The issue of pedophilia is again central , a condition that Sodondz uses as a metaphor for a crime that the vast majority regard as unforgivable (like terrorism). And forgiveness is the overriding theme of this movie. It is most vividly introduced in one key scene between the pedophile Bill (now out of jail) and a woman he meets in a hotel bar (Jacqueline played by Charlotte Rampling). The dialogue goes like this:
Jacqueline : “In my family there are either winners and losers”.
Bill : “Only losers ask for forgiveness”
Jacqueline : “Only losers expect to get it”.
Her hard-nosed point of view is that “the enemy is within” and by implication this means that looking to others to find peace and happiness is a coward’s way out.
Certainly, few of the characters here find peace or redemption. The lyrics to the title tune, co-written by Solondz and Beck and sung by Devendra Banhart sum up the melancholy mood: ” I thought I forgave, I thought I forgot / I tried to be brave but found I could not / I made a mistake and now it’s all too late /My heart’s full of ache, is this what is called fate? “
The sunshine state of Florida never looked darker.
