LIFE DURING WARTIME

If you can imagine a postscript to Todd Solondz's "Happiness" but done as a kind of comic-strip in bright, rainbow colours, (Ed Lachman did the photography), then you're about halfway to getting "Life During Wartime". A sequel of sorts to "Happiness", this takes place several years after the events of that film but Solondz has completely recast it, (in one case a character who was white in the first film is now an African-American), and opens the film with an almost identical reprise of "Happiness'" opening scene.

It really shouldn't work at all; surely "Happiness" was good enough 'to stand alone' but it does work thanks to Solondz's skewed, if deeply funny, vision of humanity and to his extraordinary new cast who fit perfectly into the shoes of their predecessors, even down to that racial crossover. It's almost impossible to single out anyone over anyone else but as the three tragic-comic sisters Allison Janney, Shirley Henderson and Ally Sheedy are terrific while Irish actor Ciaran Hinds gives a much steelier edge to the paedophile father than did Dylan Baker. Of the new characters Michael Lerner is outstanding as Janney's Jewish suitor. This is indeed a black comedy that can rightly take its place beside the movie it follows and it simply shouldn't be missed.