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'Happy Endings' grates from start to finish

"Happy Endings" is a specific kind of bad indie film.

Like critically acclaimed blowhards such as "Elephant," "Crash" and "Fahrenheit 9/11," the latest from director Don Roos ("The Opposite of Sex") makes social criticism in excessively broad strokes.

The only difference is, as it tackles subjects from sexuality to adoption to abortion, it's also a bit of a relationship drama told in three roughly connected narratives. As if that weren't enough, there's a custody suit, a sly riff on both America's sex industry and immigration, and the film's own version of the nuclear family: two lesbians, two gay men and one child.

Lions Gate Entertainment 'Happy Endings' 1 out of 5 stars Director: Don Roos Starring:Lisa Kudrow, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Steve Coogan, Laura Dern, Jesse Bradford Run time: 128 minutes Release date: July 15, 2005 Rating: R for sexual content, language and some drug use. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate "Happy Endings"   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

If only the film possessed more substance, less self-aggrandizement.

Throughout, actions are spliced and split-screened at seemingly random moments with silent movie-type title cards, which reveal character insights and plot tidbits. Here, Roos has found an even more cloying and manipulative cinematic device than the voiceover, which he used in "The Opposite of Sex." At the entrance of one character, the screen declares, "Don't worry if you don't like her" while at another, we're instructed that he's "gay but who isn't?"

Lisa Kudrow is surprisingly fragile and good as Mamie, a character who never quite recovered from her life's trials, but everyone else on screen mostly registers as either flat or strident.

As Nicky, Mamie's blackmailer who might have information about her long-lost son, Jesse Bradford ("Bring It On") is the latter. In attempting to distance himself from his teen heartthrob image, Bradford has created an unbearably screeching shell of a character desperate for a fellowship to the American Film Institute. By the end, we're not sure if his character suffers from insanity, stupidity or just plain bad writing.

Before signing on to this film, Maggie Gyllenhaal had said she wanted a role where she could lounge beside a pool. That's what she mainly does here — and not as convincingly as Ludivine Sagnier in "Swimming Pool."

She also sings mediocre renditions of mediocre Billy Joel standards.

The usually astute actress plays Jude, a character rife with potential. The drifting conwoman is fronting a band, and she proceeds to sleep with the closeted gay drummer (Jason Ritter) and then his loaded father (Tom Arnold). With a pair of oversized earrings, she's a bohemian spirit who's too free about her sex. In fact, Jude ends up being so one-dimensional that when she receives her big-screen epiphany to "start over with a clean slate," the decision feels entirely too sudden. It's almost as if Jude is working on one more swindle: fooling the audience.

The rest of the cast is a lifeless motley crew.

The amusing Steve Coogan is cast against type as a decidedly unfunny man in a long-term relationship with Gil (David Sutcliffe), who may or may not be the father of a child raised by their lesbian friends: the usually reliable Laura Dern and up-and-comer Sarah Clarke in a lifeless pairing.

The absolute nadir arrives in the portly package of Tom Arnold. A mad scientist's experiment in stunt casting, the "actor" whose last projects were "Cradle 2 the Grave" and "Soul Plane" flounders as the rich dad preyed upon by Gyllenhaal's Jude. Despite his beady eyes and his slicked-up pompadour, he's supposed to be the emotional heart of this largely heartless film, the unassuming older guy who's just lacking a little love.

Perhaps because of the movie's three different story lines, "Happy Endings" itself feels like a short film, a Lifetime movie-of-the-week and a middling NBC sitcom strung together.

"Happy Endings" is bookended by the same scene: A major character gets hit by a car. The rest of the movie is mostly a flashback leading up to the catastrophic (yet anticlimactic) event whose significance in the film's grander scheme seems to be a moot point.

Rather, it affords Roos a quick getaway as he quickly sums up the "happy endings" of the ensemble of characters. The film closes with a random image of Jude garbed in a svelte evening dress and singing another bad torch song.

For a film with such lofty ambitions, I couldn't imagine a flatter, sadder ending.