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”. Continue reading
