"Terribly, Happy" is Crazy Good

Boy, what a pleasant surprise this was. During a film season like this one with dumbed-down stories, squeaky-clean characters and criminally-overrated Oscar contenders - from the moderately good (Up in the Air) to the cliche-laden bad (The Blind Side) and an atrociously ugly one (Precious) - it's a true treasure to find a film like Terribly Happy, one that's anything but conventional and breezy.

The less you know about the film before seeing it, the better. However, the story in effect revolves around a cop with a checkered past who's relocated to a small Danish town outside Copenhagen to serve as local sheriff. Despite the town's oddball citizens - who aggravate the newly imposed cop - the town is calm enough that nothing much ever happens...that is, until a domestic abuse situation between a married couple draws the cop inwards and forces him to deal with the weird townspeople head-on. Although the trailer doesn't invite that much allure, the film itself is an excellent manifestation of subverting audiences' expectactions with plot and character. At no point do you perceive where the narrative is going, nor who the protagonist really is. All we get are allusions to his past actions and, as the story progresses, glimpses of his true inner nature. Director Henrik Ruben Genz toys with neo-noir conventions in a very assured and satisfying manner: while the first act of the movie follows a more standard approach to the genre, Genz slyly shifts gears at the onset of act two and injects the story with clever twists and a darkly comedic tone, not to mention a rich and complex leading character that consistently surprises throughout the narrative. What is most satisfying about the film is that it is never overwhelmed with forced quirky noir tropes for the sake of unconventionality. Instead, out of its ingrained 'thriller' parameters, it leads us towards presupposed outcomes which covertly deviate into darker - and weirder - unconventional areas.

Tired of being disappointed by mediocre "Oscar-caliber" films? Don't want to waste $12.50 on a film that advertises Julia Roberts & Bradley Cooper falling in love, when in fact the latter turns out to be gay? Then the answer is this: Terribly, Happy is currently playing at the Angelika Film Center (18 West Houston Street).