Happiness Runs is one of those movies that wears its air-quote truth like a protective cloak, to fend off criticisms of its narrative inadequacies: after all, if this is based on a true story, how could it possibly not be infused with hidden profundity? A semi-autobiographical slice of indulgent emo noodling written and directed by Adam Sherman, the film unfolds at a California hippie commune, where a passel of kids struggle with boundary-less situations and generally try (or at least talk about trying) to escape the hazy clutches of drug addiction and other self-destructive behavior.
The film centers on Victor (Mark Young, above right), a neglected teenager who’s ready to bust out into the world at large, if only his mom (Andie MacDowell) would give him some walking-around money instead of repeatedly signing it away to the charismatic guru, Insley (Rutger Hauer), who oversees life on the commune. Both Insley and Victor’s out-to-lunch father (Mark Boone Junior) seem more interested in hypnotizing and seducing women than anything else, but while others — including fellow teenager Jake (Shiloh Fernandez), who’s tested out sexual promiscuity in the world at large and returned to the commune — seem interested in emulating this lifestyle, Victor nurses a quiet crush on Becky (Hanna Hall, above left, of Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake), who’s returned to take care of her deathly ill father. Desperate to save Becky, but stuck in a rut that finds him the shortest side of a sort of wildly unhealthy love trapezoid which also involves Jake and Chad (Jesse Plemons), rival drug peddlers to the commune’s even younger kids, Victor trips through days and nights, uncertain of what to do.
We’re clued into the fact that Victor realizes the inherent shortcomings of theutopian ideals he’s been fed and raised on, but we don’t get to take that journey with him, nor ever see him truly, forcefully put his newfound perspective in action. He merely exists in wan, unfocused contrast to what unfolds around him. Sherman seems to conflate adolescent sexual promiscuity and a generally pervasive atmosphere of druggy abandon with foregrounded dramatic conflict, so Hall exhibits various states of undress and swings between guys while Victor kind of squints and wonders about it.
The kids aren’t all right, and we know that, certainly, but there’s nothing in this moralizing, self-consciously artistic, broad-strokes drama that really gets under one’s skin, or even particularly haphazardly connects with an aging puncher’s jarring force. The performances are as bland and generic as the words put in the characters’ mouths, and so Happiness Runs just unfolds languidly, a sort of less surly, more relaxed alt-hippie version of The Chumscrubber, in which the entire point seems to be how amazing it is that any teenager could ever even rise out of bed in the morning, given the damage done unto them by adults. (Strand, R, 89 minutes)
