[yasr_overall_rating]
There’s a magical door in Woody’s closet that allows those who go through it to erase mistakes from their past. When he finds out where it goes, his life will be changed forever.
If you could take back any decision you’ve made in your life, what would it be? We all have at least one. Maybe it’s a big one: cheating on a significant other, ruining someone else’s career to advance your own, or something else with deep and painful ramifications. Perhaps it’s a much smaller one, like failing a math test, or briefly glancing down to check your phone and rear-ending the car in front of you. It does not matter what you would undo, because we all have things that we would take back. But would you willingly change something in your past if you knew the full consequence of the outcome, and how many lives it would affect? That is the central conceit of rookie director Oliver Thompson’s indie dramedy “Welcome to Happiness.”
Children’s book author Woody Ward (Kyle Gallner) lives in an apartment that is frequented by strangers sent by his landlord Moses (Nick Offerman) and Moses’ mysterious, eccentric benefactor Proctor (Keegan-Michael Key). It is Woody’s job to guide the strangers through a series of magical rituals that culminate in their eventual entrance through a magical door in his closet, whereupon he never sees them again. Unbeknownst to Woody, who is struggling to complete his latest book while balancing a budding romance with his neighbor Trudy (Olivia Thirlby), the strangers who show up at his apartment door are being sent through the magical portal in his closet with a chance to change one decision from their past.
While Woody continues to blissfully facilitate the entrance of unhappy people through his supernatural closet, Proctor becomes involved with a suicidal artist named Nyles (Brandon Sexton III) and Ripley (Josh Brener), a sports memorabilia collector. Though the intent of “Welcome to Happiness” is to explore the unexpected connections we all have with one another, this is where the film begins to feel a bit forced and confusing. While it eventually becomes clear exactly how Woody, Nyles, and Ripley are all connected, the payoff is not really worth the incertitude of several seemingly random story threads, no matter how delightful the characters are.
Indeed, it is the characters filled by an ensemble cast of familiar faces that lend a sense of childlike wonder to the film. Between the memorable individuals populating “Welcome to Happiness” and the colorful, intricate set designs and costumes, I often felt like I had a first row seat at a live reading of one of Woody’s children’s books.
The singularly charming strangeness of the characters and the loving detail of Thompson’s handcrafted world are what make this film worth a viewing. Though the plot threads are ultimately woven together, I left with a sense that they might have been frayed in the process, and that Thompson’s cinematic sewing could have been much neater. Additionally, I felt that “Happiness” would have strongly benefited from allotting more screen time to Key’s and particularly Offerman’s characters, which were well portrayed but often felt more like bench players deserving of a starting role.
However, it is important to keep in mind that this is Oliver Thompson’s first feature effort, and he still does a fine job of immersing the viewer into the world that he created. In an era of film that is increasingly dominated by big studio “tentpole” franchises that are scarcely distinguishable from one another, “Welcome to Happiness” is a breath of fresh air.
In theaters & VOD May 20th
