User reviews

Where to start? Well, first off this is what my daily commute to work is like. A literal rat race,the only difference in this animated short is that the rats don't use smartphones as much as us humans.

We see them (the rats) waiting for the train at the tube station - that was very true to life, comical in fact. A tin of sardines pulls up; one sardine falls out, another squeezes its way inside.

There are advertisements everywhere - in your face. Buy, buy, buy, commodity, commodity, commodity. Eat that burger - you know you want it but don't need it. Buy happiness, it's everywhere. Unless it's sold out at the local multiplex.

We've all been there.

Everything here begs the question... is this rat race carefully controlled by the upper echelons, slowly turning the cogs and warping our little brains? It is a scary fact and one that tempted me to turn this off early especially during the Black Friday sequence. Ahh!

The animations are fantastic and the choice of music lends to a sickly soundtrack.

Take from this what you will but be warned you might not like the stark dose of reality that Happiness delivers!

While this short film does feel a little pessimistic in its interpretations of work and consumerism, it still presents them in an interesting way that makes the viewer think. I feel like this could have been just another movie or short showing the flaws of society, it it unveils those flaws in an interesting and visually striking way. The lively animation Paired with the classic music, serves as a meaningful yet cautious take on the meaning and purpose of happiness. This is probably one of Steve Cutts better shorts and it shows.

This is the real rat race. It starts with everyone wanting happiness, but the world is full of identical rats. As the "individuals" try to negotiate life, most fall by the wayside. They try to achieve financial success, material success, or euphoria through the use of drugs (and come crashing down). They are unaware of one another because why should they care? This is a sad, depressing commentary on the world we live in.

Story: 9/10. It's not a groundbreaking narrative but it's handled so seamlessly and with an effective sense of humour.

Visuals: 9/10. The animation is very comic-book-like in a good way and makes for very immersive chaos.

Sound: 8/10. Good sound design and choice in classical music.

Perfectly conveys the intended message. A thing of beauty with stunningly detailed visuals and an appropriately sweeping score. I loved the medicated fantasy scene!

It's the most stunning short I've ever seen. Never thought that I would see something that would stalk with me for so long. Pretty much everyone I know has seen it. It's a marvelous little masterpiece that condences in a few minutes the "glorious" modern lifestyle of humankind. We've reached a point in time when we're so full hatred to one another, so depressed, so... unhappy. We can only imagine of a perfect society or so called utopia, but the current "state of the world" still has some work to do to change trajectory and find viable solutions for future generations to come.

The best short film i've seen this year, period. I never write reviews in here, but this time, I needed to say that.

Nice movie about about life. It talks about our empty lives where we just know to work.

So much symbolic and meaningfull.Portrays present world with increasing population and thirst for money

In terms of animation, this is easily Steve Cutts's best work. He has drawn thousands of rats with animation which would have taken a few months to draw at least. It is more colourful than any of his other films. The film questions many things including mass mentality and human's greed among other things. The narrative might be confusing but the ending is great.

Artist Steve Cutts offers an interesting insight in this short film that uses a famous psychological experiment to understand the society we live in. The short film presents us with a world inhabited by rats where one of the newly arrived creatures seeks happiness in every item that has that word as its name. What we see in this short film are quite clear references to capitalism and consumer culture. It is clear that one of the functions of the capitalist system is to sell false happiness through advertisements, making individuals believe that if they obtain a particular object, that will give them ultimate happiness. This is something that is printed in many advertisements and that is why in the short film we see the word "happiness" written in advertisements for food, drinks, credit cards, merchandise, clothing, entertainment, etc.

At the beginning, the rodent protagonist is presented as an ordinary rat until he joins the masses and begins to act like other rats. What is being applied here is the famous Skinner box where rats are subjected to something that builds a way of behaving in them. The Skinner box was an important experiment to study behavior and how to regulate it. Linked to behavioral psychology, the goal was to propose that human behavior can be conditioned and controlled. With that in mind, the short film is explicitly saying that human beings are actually rats in a box created by capitalism. It makes sense because in the short film the rat at the beginning would be a person who comes into the world naturally, until he joins society and the behavior of this society is installed in him. Like other rats, he seeks happiness object by object. The most disturbing thing is the Black Friday scene where we see rats fighting over a product. It is well known that on Black Friday, people gather in masses and fight violently to obtain a product. It is nothing different from what is seen in this short film and it shows the materialistic mentality that has been implanted in people's minds. This partly contributes to crime by instilling in people the idea that a material object is worth more than the life of another individual. When the rat is fined and then vandalized, it is hit by the sad reality and now seeks happiness in drinks and medicines. This is a clear reference to alcoholism and the consumption of medicines that combat depression. The truth is that these elements are usually a kind of anesthesia to keep the individual relaxed and free from the pains that sad reality generates. In the end, the rat falls into a mousetrap that explains what capitalism really seeks to achieve with false happiness and the consumer society. It is well known that the products that corporations offer count for a lot of money and that to obtain the amount of money needed to invest in those products, one must work non-stop. There we realize that with the false happiness that capitalism sells, it seeks to encourage individuals to work in the system, shedding blood and sweat to achieve the promised happiness. In the end, it is a means of control so that more products are made, products are consumed, and factories or businesses are sustained. The final message of the short film is that we are rats that turn the wheel that keeps the system running. Without that, the system falls apart and we cannot live without it because the system controls the means we need to survive.

It is truly a great short film with a good social message that makes us think about the kind of society we live in. It has very good elements to analyze and the artist provides a pleasant experience with a comic-like drawing style. George Bizet's music fits quite well with the short film. Happiness is a very admirable little work for combining art, psychology, and social issues in a worthy representation of what society really is, while making it clear that people are nothing more than simple rodents without a purpose that does not depend on the system. My final rating for this short film is 10/10.

Isn't it ironic that it barely takes two, exactly two reviews in fact, to already get a sample of the 'rat' symbol here. Talking about going against the establishment, who, the one who claims elite in gilded form? Some people, I say, can't even tell the ironic context of their own quote. Identical to the lemmings in Steve's other film, just leading them all to their own cultist doom...