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'Happy Endings': Witty stories explore sexual consequences

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Straight or gay, married or single, predatory or true-blue, everyone in "Happy Endings" is looking for — what else? — a happy ending. And many of them find one — some almost in spite of themselves.

Writer-director Don Roos ("The Opposite of Sex") once again has sex on his mind. But not just the act itself. He wants us to consider the consequences of sex in all its permutations: parenthood, adoption, abortion, sperm banks, "See, I'm not gay" sex, lonely guy sex, guilty sex, user sex, casual sex, even romantic "You're the one I want forever" sex.

Lions Gate Entertainment

'Happy Endings'

The verdict: A likable ensemble comedy that cleverly shuffles an eclectic cast.

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.
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"Happy Endings" isn't as lusty as all that sounds. It's more about characters than couplings. Characters like Mamie (Lisa Kudrow), who 20 years ago had sex with her brand-new stepbrother, Charley, just so she could get away from the family by becoming pregnant. She tells everyone she's having an abortion, but instead gives up her child for adoption.

Now she's a woefully inept abortion counselor who's offered the chance to see her now-teenage son by a flaky filmmaker named Nicky (Jesse Bradford). The catch is, he insists on filming their reunion as part of his application to film school.

Meanwhile, Charley (Steve Coogan), who has no idea a child exists, has settled into domestic bliss with his partner, Gil (David Sutcliffe). But he's facing parenthood issues of his own. He's convinced Gil is the father of the baby boy conceived via a sperm bank by their lesbian best friends, Pam (Laura Dern) and Diane (Sarah Clarke).

And then there's Jude (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a beautiful, footloose waif who knows sex can get you anything (almost). To that end, she first seduces Otis (Jason Ritter), the son of a wealthy widower named Frank (Tom Arnold) — mostly so she'll have a place to stay and he can prove to his father he's not gay (which, of course, he is). Then she goes after Daddy.

These folks intersect in dribs and drabs, but for the most part, the movie is made up of three separate but equal story lines. And all three are equally interesting — a rarity in movies like this.

Gyllenhaal has the juiciest role and she makes the most of it. She gives Jude a hint of the dangerous flirtatiousness that's Annette Bening's trademark. She makes the character so credibly amoral, you actually feel sorry for Frank (it helps that Arnold is actually quite good). Bradford is just queasily sleazy enough, while Bobby Cannavale is lunkheadedly funny as Javier, Mamie's masseur/lover. And Dern, as always, steals her every scene.

Kudrow has the most complex role and she's so good you wonder why she hasn't made a better transition to movies after "Friends." Taking one quiet, subtle risk after another, she creates a person as poignant as she is ludicrous.

Roos' observations are often savagely real and, at the same time, sadly touching. The intermittent title cards that serve as exposition can be hilarious as well as pointedly sarcastic.

But the picture has a problem with length. Two-plus hours doesn't fit the skimmy, smart-mouth tone. Further, the parts are more than the whole.

Still, "Happy Endings" is lithe, clever, thoughtful, well-acted and certainly entertaining. Almost as if admitting right way everything won't add up completely, one of the earliest title cards identifies the movie as "a comedy ... sort of."

The comedy's all there. The rest ... just sort of.