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| Directed by Mark Illsley; Starring Jeremy Northam, Steve Zahn, Ally Walker, William H. Macy, Illeana Douglas, M.C. Gainey, Ron Perlman, and Paul Dooley |
I’m one to keep a pretty good watch of the film scene, especially in the periods of awards and film festivals. Since I never seem to get to go to any of the big festivals like Telluride and Toronto, I’m usually making due with waiting for films to make it to a market near me. So when a film gets great buzz at a festival and has a pretty eager distributor, then I’m usually waiting for the film with open arms. Such was the case with Happy, Texas. After generating good word of mouth at Sundance this year, I was quite happy to hear that Miramax picked it up, meaning that it would surely be in my area. After about three months of waiting it out, the first glimpse of the film came for me in the form of a theatrical trailer. That would be the moment when I threw my arms in the air and said “there’s always The Insider to look forward to!” The sophomoric humor present in the trailer was not anything I had hoped from the film. I, the man that laughs his head off at Happiness and Rushmore, was not looking for a film that had strained attempts at laughter by having a character jump around trying to show small children how to dance. My expectations were low and my feelings on the film after seeing it was no different from those that I had with the trailer.
Happy, Texas is a small town in Texas where everybody knows each other and the whole place is, well, happy. They are about to throw their hand into a big beauty pageant, hiring an openly gay couple from a larger city to get their girls into a viable choice for the victors at the pageant. The problem is that instead of the couple, they are given two fugitives who must act like they are the couple. It seems that in a routine convict work effort, three are taken on a separate bus and wrecked. One is a rather mean fellow that leaves the other two behind. With the Texas Rangers in hot pursuit of him, the other two must lay low and let everything smooth over. Their way to get away is in a recreational vehicle they steal and their destination turns out to be the place where the couple they stole it from was heading. With the understanding that they must act like they are gay, the two decide to accept the thousand the town is offering for their services and to rob the bank the day of the pageant. As their time there progresses, one (Northam) finds himself in love with the manager of the bank (Walker) as well as the love of a local sheriff (Macy), while the other (Zahn) must teach the grade school pageant contestants how to shine on the stage.
The film is a completely mistaken comedy. I admittedly laughed a few times at the film, but there were much more misfires then there were chuckles. The whole film is supported by its rather good cast. I have been the supporter of Jeremy Northam for what seems like ages, adoring his performances in An Ideal Husband and The Winslow Boy recently. His performance works much better than Zahn since it is much more understated than Zahn’s wild antics. I like Zahn most of the time, but it seemed like he was trying a bit too hard this time around. Macy gives a rather good performance, the best of the film. The only main roles that are utterly terrible are Walker and Douglas (doing what seems to be an impression of Shelley Duval). For what it’s worth, Happy, Texas is one of those films that it is really hard to hate, but still a misfire.
