The story of Happy is that of two escaped convicts, played by Steve Zahn (whose character is named Wayne Wayne Wayne Jr.) and Jeremy Northam, who find themselves mistaken for a gay, married couple who put on the aforementioned creepy little-girl pageants in small towns. They larn them some morals from them there good, honest, small-town folk, including the adorably forlorn-faced William H. Macy (terrific, as always), the chick who was the Profiler (who left less of an impression on me than a feather leaves on concrete), and Ileana Douglas (stripped of nearly any discernible trace of personality). And it all ends with little girls wearing creepy pageant gowns and singing an unintelligible (but, I'm sure, unnerving) song.
Happy Texas is a golden retriever of a movie: it wants you to like it SO SO MUCH!! So I feel a little bit like I'm kicking a puppy when I say that there are long, lo-o-o-ong stretches of dead air. It strains too hard to be wacky, but there's something missing, some energy or zest that's just not there, except in Steve Zahn.
Zahn is easily the best thing about Happy -- not that he does anything too different from his other roles -- but he's got that lovable, none-too-bright act down to a science. He's hilarious nearly every minute he's on the screen; he can even get a laugh from saying "Hello." When he does a pratfall, he commits to it. He's the kind of guy that makes you go, "Damn! I wanna go drinking with him!" And the boy cleans up real purty.
Steve does his damnedest to make sure we have a good time, but unfortunately, the movie drags when he's off-screen. The normally excellent Jeremy Northam doesn't make much of an impression actingwise, though he does a charming two-step with Macy. But, ay chihuahua! he wears the hell out of his jeans. I thought he was only good in period pieces, but he even makes an orange prison jumpsuit seem sexy. Still, Mr. Northam would look a lot yummier if he made the acquaintance of Mr. Gillette or Mr. Remington. That two-day stubble look is so 1985.
I wanted to like this movie, I really did, because it was a big hit at Sundance, and I want to feel like I'm one of that hip film festival crowd, complaining good-naturedly to Bob (Redford) and Harvey (Weinstein) about getting hit by an errant snowball from a fight between Sarah Polley and Vince Vaughn and telling Luke Perry I'd like a grande double hazelnut latte with a little less foam this time or no tip. But I'd have to say you might as well wait for this one on video (though I do recommend that you see it at some point if only to see Zahn, shall we say, reprimand a little boy for bothering the girls). And don't say I didn't warn you about the little girls ripping off their frocks and twirling them over their heads like so many teeny Gypsy Rose Lees. Great -- more nightmare material for me.
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