Four (or so) intersecting plotlines on the themes of the pursuit of happiness and the quirks of fate, but snipped up and patched together so that events that follow each other on screen do not follow each other in chronology. Additional chopping-up and rearranging are achieved through chapter headings excerpted from the dialogue: "Ignorance is bliss," "Fuck guilt," "Fortune smiles on some and laughs at others," "Eighteen inches of personal space," and so forth. There might be something to be gotten from the out-of-joint construction -- a sense of the seeming randomness of the universe, the mysterious interconnectedness of all things, the surreptitious action of cause and effect, the endless recurrence of the pattern -- but it's hard to be sure you're really getting it. Even so, the film is stronger on overall vision than on the fine points of dialogue and narrative. The former tends to sound "written" and artificial, while the latter tends to look contrived, uninventive, thesis-driven, illustrative. Somehow it's not surprising to hear that the filmmaking sisters, director and co-writer Jill Sprecher and co-writer Karen Sprecher, acknowledge Bertrand Russell's The Concept of Happiness as a "jumping-off point." The economical, energy-efficient, no-waste performance of Alan Arkin as the consummate sourpuss, suspicious of anyone's good fortune or good humor, so dominates the proceedings as to foment impatience with the alternating plotlines. (Despite the presence in them of such watchable players as John Turturro, Barbara Sukowa, Clea DuVall, Tia Texada.) The office milieu around Arkin -- a tight-fisted insurance outfit -- reminds us that the Sprechers had earlier collaborated on Clockwatchers. Their ambition since then has increased by leaps and bounds. Their charm has increased, too, by at least a hop and a skip. With Matthew McConaughey, Amy Irving, Frankie Faison, William Wise. (2002) — Duncan Shepherd
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