Happiness in small doses

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Movie
German title Happiness in small doses
Original title The Chumscrubber
Country of production USA , Germany
original language English
Publishing year 2005
length 108 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
JMK 14
Rod
Director Aria Posin
script Arie Posin (story),
Zac Stanford
production Lawrence Bender ,
Bonnie Curtis
music James Horner
camera Lawrence Sher
cut William S. Sharf ,
Arthur Schmidt
occupation

Happiness in Small Doses is the first full-length feature film by director Arie Posin . It is a satire on the American way of life in the uniform suburbs of the USA , in which adults and teenagers deliberately pass each other.

action

Dean Stiffle (Jamie Bell) is fed up with life in the affluent US suburban idyll. In his school the outsider is mocked and his father (William Fichtner) uses the son as a basis for psychological analysis. When his best friend Troy Johnson (Josh Janowicz) - drug supplier for his classmates - commits suicide and Dean finds him, his life is completely upside down. Under the pretext of first wanting to have a “man to man” conversation with his son, his father prescribes a sedative to help him maintain the “necessary balance”.

When Dean then goes to school, his classmate Billy (Justin Chatwin) plays a nasty trick on him: he dangles a skeleton from a beam. Dean, who is used to such maliciousness, ignores Billy as usual and does not want to get involved in a conversation with Crystal (Camilla Belle), who claims to have been Troy's girlfriend. But just as Dean has gained a little trust in her, the rest of her clique shows up: ringleaders Billy and Lee (Lou Taylor Pucci). It turns out that the three of them are only after Troy's supply of pills and want to persuade Dean to get them Troy's remaining supplies. But Dean doesn't get involved in a conversation.

Billy and Lee need a new plan, so they quickly decide to kidnap Dean's little brother Charlie. After telling him over the phone and wondering why Dean is not impressed at all, it turns out that the two teenagers caught the wrong Charlie - the son of cop Lou (John Heard) and interior designer Terry (Rita Wilson ), who actually wants to marry Hillside Mayor Michael Ebbs (Ralph Fiennes) two days later. But for Billy, one hostage is as good as the other, and finally Dean gives in and promises Crystal to get her and her friends the pills.

Dean breaks into his friend's summer house and is almost caught by Troy's mother Carrie (Glenn Close), who is distracted at the last moment by the doorbell. He finds a bag of Troy's supplies and takes it with him. Dean and Crystal's gang meet at the mall, but when Dean finally gets there, the bag only contains the vitamin pills his mother sells over the phone. There is a fight between Billy and Dean, in which Dean is arrested and taken into police custody. The officer in charge is Charlie's father Lou, of all people, who doesn't believe a word of the whole story from Dean and didn't even notice that his son was kidnapped, because Charlie actually lives with his mother, who, however, has no attention for her son due to their wedding Has.

While Mr. Stiffle tries to get his son out of jail, his wife Allie prepares the casserole for Troy's memorial service, which (like Michael and Terry's wedding) is to take place the next day. Dean's brother Charlie, who previously took the tablets out of his pocket, added a colorful mixture of different crushed tablets to the casserole. The next morning the family argues about who goes to which event: while Mr. Stiffle desperately wants to go to the wedding (on the grounds that he has already written two books about death and a wedding would bring him more professionally), Allie wants that instead Attend memorial service. So the couple go their separate ways.

Dean, who has not yet made up his mind, gets a visit from Crystal, because Billy and Lee slowly go crazy and want to kill their hostage Charlie. Dean and Crystal intervene at the last minute after Charlie has already received the first stab wounds. In the subsequent scramble, Billy is injured in the face, whereupon he runs into the street in a panic and is run over by Officer Bratley of all people.

After the chaos has subsided a little and the wedding has broken off, Dean seeks Troy's mother and is the only one who behaves normally because he has not eaten any of his mother's casserole. By talking to Dean, Carrie gets a different picture of her son and can finally face her grief. Billy, who unexpectedly survived the accident, ends up in jail, and Dean and Crystal manage to "escape" from Hillside.

Reviews

“Just because of the performance of all those involved,“ happiness in small doses ”is worth seeing. Anyone who wants to conjure up the nightmare of suburbia will find exactly the right remedy in this film. "

- Deike Stagge, Filmstarts.de

“Instead of the big Sturm und Drang, Posin relies on the small, mean episodes and mobilizes a good-humored 19-member cast, as if it were a film by Robert Altman. To name just two highlights: Glenn Close is the compulsively lively mother of the suicide, who at least manages to wriggle out of her inability to mourn in the end. Ralph Fiennes trudges through the film as Mayor Ebbs with a sphinx-like smile and puzzles over dolphins that he thinks he sees everywhere. "

- Jens Hinrichsen, filmzentrale.com

alternative name

An alternative name is Abgefugged - The Deceptive Idyll of Hillside

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Age rating for happiness in small doses . Youth Media Commission .
  2. ↑ http://www.ofdb.de/film/71989,Gl%C3%BCck-in-kleinen-Dosen