Lenny (Ben Gazzara) has had enough. Faking it comes easy in a marriage, but even the strongest man has his limits. Only so many times you can hear the same tired stories, shrug at the same lame jokes, and yes, stare blankly into the same old face, year after year, usually accompanied by a running mouth that never closes. Suddenly, the courage comes. It’s time. Make a run for it, before even the knees go. Because they will. Get out while there’s still air in your lungs and a year or two of sweet, sweet silence before the grand silence that takes us all. It’s arguably mankind’s most courageous act: refusing to simply endure just to avoid being alone.
Because being alone is what Lenny craves most of all. His soon to be ex-, Mona (Louise Lasser), is incredulous. “It’s Diane, isn’t it?”, she barks, convinced he’s found a younger, better model. “Now I’ll have to get another fucking facelift!” Only she’s wrong. As wrong as she can be, in fact. Lenny isn’t running away to be with a younger woman, or to sew his wild oats, or even to find a beach somewhere to ogle to his heart’s content. “I just want to be alone,” he reasons, showing his hand maybe for the first time. He’s hiding nothing. No lies, no games, no bullshit. He just wants time to himself. Not a slice of silence, but the whole damn pie. Always, from his morning coffee to his late night stumble into the empty bed that may as well be his coffin.
But Mona isn’t buying it. No woman could. The greatest insult a man can levy is to say he prefers isolation to companionship. Her companionship. What will you do? Whatever. She simply can’t fathom that he doesn’t still have love in his heart. “I’m in love with no one,” he cries, which may as well be a 2×4 to the chops. Only worse. Throwing away a lifetime for a big-breasted secretary, she can handle. It sucks, but it’s reasonable. But preferring solitude? Is he sick? Dying? Totally insane? It’s an act so revolutionary, it deserves a standing ovation. Because nothing will hurt a woman more than the knowledge that a man has given up on the very idea of cohabitation because of her. She was the final straw. If this is what it’s like, there can never be another. Pure, glorious surrender. May it one day be a movement.
That said, Lenny does have a dalliance. And yes, it’s the Diane of legend. Only instead of her being his last roar of passion, the great romance that ushers in a changing of the ways, she confirms his worst fears. It – love, hope, desire, the whole bag of tricks – is truly over. Gone forever. He can’t even go through the motions. His encounter on Diane’s couch, though alarmingly brief, may as well have lasted a century, given the implications. “Don’t feel guilty,” she coos, proving that she, like Mona, hasn’t a clue. “I don’t,” he sighs. “I don’t feel anything.” Lenny and Diane had nothing in common to be sure, and despite her throaty allure (a lifetime of smoking can sound sexy, against the odds), even the prospect of an overdue erection can’t reverse this tide. As he says of golf (“It passes the time”), so is it now with the one thing usually left us when so much else has run for the exits. Now just something to get through, rather than actually enjoy. True impotence, covering all the bases at last.
The enduring glory of Happiness is that, from top bottom, there isn’t a single character to root for. Every last man or woman is a self-pitying jerk, and not one deserves anything less than the pain and misery they themselves bring about. No victims here, just sad sacks justifiably on the margins of life. Forget redemption: we watch not to learn or love, but to pity and judge. Thankfully, we had the Wild West of the 1990’s and the film got made, because these days, even the mere rumor of the script’s existence would cause global panic. Cancellations would lead to firings, and we’d never hear the end of Gen Z’s sanctimonious drivel. But it’s in the can. It exists. DVD, streaming, YouTube. It’s a film so out of time, it feels like a miracle. And with it, we have Lenny. Not the sort of man we could stand to have around, but one who might help us sleep a little better. Just knowing he’s out there, fighting the good fight for all of us who just want a little place to rest. Nowhere to go, though not wanting to even if there were. Our sanctuary. A haven in a heartless world.
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