HAPPINESS RUNS

"Based on a true story" we're promised as the film opens to scratchy 8mm footage of young hippies building a field-based commune in the late 1960s / early 1970s, dancing around a maypole, getting stoned off their tits and getting it on in the name of free love while some dodgy female folk singer wails on the soundtrack.

Cut to "20 years later", and this particular commune still exists on its self-made farm and surrounding land. They still languish naked on a morning while listening to leader Insley (Rutger Hauer) spouts his pretentious rhetoric to his followers. His Utopian ideals are doled out daily to his cult, with the help of his assistant, The Hypnotist (Kevin Gage).

The young hippies are now middle-aged, drug-addled adults. The children they gave birth to in the height of their free loving frenzies have reached that age where they are starting to feel disillusioned with life.

A prime example is Victor (Mark L Young), son of a promiscuous dopehead on site (Andie MacDowell). He spends a night of passion with fellow commune offspring Becky (Hannah Hall) and decides he wants to leave the cult, inviting her along for the ride. Her cancer-riddled father (John Walcutt) urges her to leave while she can.

But Victor's wealthy mother can't give him any money to fund his efforts to find a new life - all her dosh goes directly to Insley. His whacked-out father (Mark Boone Junior) doesn't help either, failing to see why anyone would wish to leave their cult. "When you grow up, you will sleep with a different woman every night ... doesn't that sound nice?" he reasons. He's got a point, come on.

Victor's discontent grows as he hangs around nightly with the other commune kids, who seem all too happy to meander through their days bickering, getting high and then bickering some more. Victor has been raised in an environment that scorns conformism and encourages spiritual enlightenment (albeit, for this ladies this entails the surrender of their wares to wily Insley) - it is perfectly understandable, then, that he reaches an age where these ideals lead him into challenging the very nature of his stifled existence.

But how do you escape the only life you've ever known? And, with such a jaundiced, imposed view of the outside world, what are you likely to make of your freedom ... should you ever attain it?

Writer-director Adam Sherman treats the commune families with unexpected affection and attention: these aren't just sex-mad druggies - we get to see their responsible sides too, such as strict parenting regimes and folk caring for sick or elderly neighbours. It's heartening to see what I believe is a more realistic, balanced portrayal of cult members than in any other similarly themed film I can think of.

What Sherman lacks is a sustainable pace. HAPPINESS RUNS bases itself on an interesting muse (whatever happened to the kids that were born into those weird commune cults from the late 60s/early 70s?) and has a nice grasp of the dialogue they bounce off one another, but the story does start to lose its grip somewhat once we're past the 40-minute stage. Disaffected youth, scenes of (simulated) sex and nudity involving sometimes worryingly young-looking cast members, plots that seem to amble without aim for the large part - on paper, this all begins to sound like a Larry Clark film.

But HAPPINESS RUNS carries with it that "based on a true story" tag to entice along for the ride. Fortunately there are solid, sympathetic performances from the younger members of the cast to further pull us in, and offset themselves against the self-important hamminess of MacDowell's druggie mom and Hauer's faintly embarrassing take on the archetypal Jim Jones-type figure.

The film boasts a decent soundtrack, including the likes of Fear ("I Don't Care About You") and Bad Brains ("At The Movies") along the way. It also looks surprisingly slick and polished, the stylish cinematography treating the eyes while simultaneously robbing the film of the gritty atmosphere I felt could've improved it.

All in all, HAPPINESS RUNS is a decent enough film that transposes the familiar theme of disaffected youth into an unusual scenario, and coaxes some potentially career-kickstarting roles out of it to boot. As a 9pm film on Channel 5, I imagine the casual viewer would stick with it and feel quietly satisfied afterwards; as a piece of genre cinema, it offers a whole lot less.

The picture quality on this uncut UK DVD presentation is excellent: HAPPINESS RUNS looks great. Sharp, clean imagery; warm accurate colours; solid contrast ... there's nothing to complain about here.

English 2.0 audio plays without fault throughout.

Matchbox Films' DVD opens to a static main menu page which replicates their release's cover art. From there, a static scene-selection menu allows access to the film via 16 chapters.

If you're looking for bonus features, then you'll be disappointed to discover the only one offered here is the film's original trailer. This runs for 2 minutes and possesses a pace that the main feature itself is lacking. It also makes the film look a lot more exploitative than it is, like a distant cousin to THE MANSON FAMILY or something. However, this it is most definitely not.

HAPPINESS RUNS is competently made, boasts some interesting faces among its cast and has a great punk soundtrack. But it's already starting to fade from my memory, just a short while after I've finished watching it.

Review by Stuart Willis