Mise-en-scene in Happiness (1998)

 Happiness (1998) is a very darkly comedic drama written and directed by Todd Solondz. The film focuses on three sisters, their families and various acquaintances, as they all search for happiness and satisfaction with life through often disturbing and inherently deviant means. The film explores some truly dark, horrific subject matter, but nevertheless maintains a warm, dreamlike mise-en-scene in its colorful suburban New Jersey setting, and manages to find humor in some shocking and very awkward scenarios. The irony of the title lies in the fact that pretty much none of the many characters are ever truly happy and all struggle immensely to find anything close, even by the end of the nearly two and half hour runtime. Much of the film looks like it could be from a sitcom or network television show, which makes the behavior of the characters all the more disturbing. The film also uses light opera, classical pieces, and easy listening music which further contradicts the content on screen.

     The opening scene of the film features one of the three sisters, Joy, and a man she has been dating, Andy, in the midst of her basically breaking up with him. The scene is extremely awkward, like much of the rest of the film, but is shot in a very warm, romantic manner that directly goes against what we’re seeing unfold. Compared to the rest of the film, this scene is absolutely one of the tamest, but still sets the tone very well. The scene begins right in the middle of a very emotional point in the conversation, but veers back into a slightly lighter place as Andy presents Joy with a gift he had planned to give her. Overcome with happiness and gratitude, she tells Andy she’ll always cherish it despite them going their separate ways. Andy disagrees and snatches the gift back, completely shifting the tone of the scene, going into a rant about how his gift is for someone who actually loves him and goes on about her superficial nature and how she’s wrong about him. Joy struggles to find love throughout the film and has a difficult time making connections with people around her, which makes her feel inferior to her other two sisters who seem to have their lives much more put together than her. This opening scene presents us with the common theme of disconnection and puts us right into Joy’s struggle.

    The scene begins with a closeup of Joy and cuts between her and a closeup of Andy for the first minute before showing any kind of wider shot of their location. We see the slightly moving heads of other restaurant guests in the background, completely out of focus, leaving the two characters and their mutually tired, teary eyed faces as the focus, but also, coupled with the sounds of clinking plates and silverware, letting the audience know the familiar restaurant setting right off the bat. There is a slightly more in focus floral arrangement in the corner of each of these shots as well as a piece of the patterned bench they are both sitting on. It’s not even necessary for there to be a wider shot as this gives us all we need to know about the setting and the relatively upscale nature of it. The shot, reverse shot pattern finally changes to a medium shot with both of their faces and upper bodies as Andy finally breaks down into tears. This immediately shows us the awkwardness of this situation while also finally revealing the setting in full. Joy and Andy are framed by a floral arrangement covering most of the top third of the shot, but again we see the movement of another patron’s head behind it, reminding us this is still a public setting, and enhancing the awkwardness of this very personal conversation. The shot is almost symmetrical, with a large gap of space between the two characters as they sit behind a table in the center of the shot, showing the gap in their relationship and the different understandings of where it’s going. After Andy finally calms down, we see their faces from an over the shoulder perspective with other guests and waiters much more in view. This comes with the mutual calming of emotional intensity, but the awkwardness remains. The shots that contain both of the actors are the most awkward as we can see both of their faces, and Joy’s lack of eye contact as Andy desperately tries to change her mind.

    The scene has very high key lighting with almost no shadows. The backlighting makes the characters almost appear to glow and aside from the initial close up shots revealing the bags under their eyes and their tears, we see very little in terms of facial detail. Everything is lit in a very soft way. This subverts our expectations and gives the scene a warm, romantic look that directly goes against the cold, somewhat depressing nature of the conversation depicted. This is true throughout the film, as Solondz intentionally chooses to light things in this very bright, glowing, warm way to contradict the extremely dark subject matter of the film, and play with our expectations. The whole film looks and feels almost like a dream, especially with the bright coloring of many scenes. We’re even more put off and uncomfortable by what occurs on screen as we’re more used to seeing topics like these shown with much more low key and gritty lighting, or not even explored at all. This matches our uneasiness of these topics being depicted in such a warm, familiar, suburban setting.

    The setting of this restaurant is designed in a very warm, romantic way. The floral arrangement surrounding Joy and Andy is full of color and gives the whole restaurant a feeling of being upscale and full of life. The bench the two characters sit at is patterned and colored as well. The table is decorated with a pink table cloth, with a yellow floral runner placed over it. The characters don’t blend into the setting, but they don’t really fit with the colorful decoration of the rest of the scene. They both have pretty bland colored clothing on, and both have little makeup or styling done to their hair. This adds to the idea that these characters don’t fit with society, especially as they struggle to find joy and love in their lives throughout the rest of the film. This also adds to the idea that they aren’t supposed to be colorful characters, but instead representative of everyday, unhappy people just struggling to find happiness.

    The camera is basically entirely static in each of the shots in this scene. There is very little movement of the characters as well. They are blocked with a large gap of space between them as they sit on the bench. They’re intentionally positioned so we can see both of their faces and their various mostly uncomfortable expressions during their conversation. If they were to be placed across from each other, we wouldn’t be able to see this kind of tension and we wouldn’t feel as uncomfortable watching it. They stare at each other for much of the scene without really interacting with anything on the table, aside from when Andy violently blows his nose into his napkin. They’re too caught up in the emotional intensity of their conversation. This shifts as Andy presents Joy with a gift, a custom ashtray he had ordered for her. Most of the figure movement is shown in the wider shot, as we see Andy holding out the gift across the gap that has dominated the conversation, and eventually snatching the gift back across that same gap. Andy holds the ashtray in the middle of this gap as the conversation finally switches into an angry tone and he slams the ashtray down onto the bench as he berates Joy.

    The mise-en-scene in Happiness gives us such a dreamlike world with it’s soft, high key lighting, lush coloring, and vibrant, familiar design, that we’re even more uncomfortable watching the situations unfold on screen, as our expectations have been subverted from what we’re used to seeing in these kind of atmospheres. The main characters and the situations they find themselves in throughout the entire film don’t really fit with this setting. I believe this was absolutely Solondz’s intention. 

Link to scene