Happythankyoumoreplease

I caught the premiere of Happy at the Sundance Film Festival. I'm a huge fan of Josh Radnor (best known for his role as Ted Mosby on the CBS series, How I Met Your Mother), but remained a little skeptical going in since this is a first-time film for him. I was pleasantly surprised! This movie is so charming; I couldn't help falling in love with all of the characters. I was especially impressed by Tony Hale's endearing performance as Sam #2, who tries to win the affection of Annie (Malin Akerman), a woman with Alopecia who struggles with the idea of someone being so smitten with her. Mary Catherine (Zoe Kazan) and Charlie (Pablo Schreiber) are absolutely adorable together and have an unbeatable on screen chemistry. They are at a crossroads in their relationship as Charlie tries to sell Mary Catherine on the idea of leaving their home in New York to move to L.A.

Sam (Josh Radnor), Mississippi (Kate Mara) and Rasheen (Michael Algieri) round out the cast of characters. Mississippi is a cabaret singer who catches the eye of Sam early in the film and while their hesitation to throw caution to the wind and go for each other is annoying at times, it brings a much-needed realism over romance approach to their relationship.

Rasheen was an audience favorite and his role adds a unique piece to this puzzle, playing a foster boy separated from his family on the subway who is rescued and looked after by Sam. It is truly an enjoyable highlight of the film to watch their interactions as they grow from perfect strangers to close friends. An amazing dynamic is brought to the script through their friendship, but not without Rasheen's life before Sam looming in the distance.

If this movie is any indication of Josh's talent as a writer, I can't wait to see more of his work. It contains all of the elements of a romantic comedy, yet manages to completely avoid the clichés and predictability that are typically found in this genre. It is clever, heartwarming, hopeful and hilarious. I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes the big hit of Sundance 2010. Congratulations to Josh and everyone behind this film!

I adored this film, it was one of my favorites at Sundance, and the cast & crew were amazingly sweet people. The film is a trio of intertwined stories involving six New Yorkers dealing with the complexities of love, friendship and identity. While this premise may sound familiar, its charm is refreshing and its character keeps the film from becoming just another romantic comedy. The main story focuses on Sam Wexler, a struggling writer (Radnor ), who, during a particularly bad day when he encounters a young boy (played by the adorable Michael Algieri) who's been separated from his family. When the boy reveals that he is unhappy in foster care, Sam decides to bring the boy back to his apartment, and a unique friendship begins to develop between the two. This friendship both initiates and complicates Sam's romance with a beautiful cabaret singer named Mississippi (Kate Mara). I really recommend this film. I can't wait for it to be released in theaters so my friends and family can see it.

This is an excellent "slice of life" movie, very easy to relate to and entertaining. It manages to be optimistic without being saccharine sweet. The writer/director, while male, depicts women characters with compassion and understanding. And New York in summer feels like the real thing, in a way that the best Woody Allen films do. Most impressive and enjoyable, though, are the performances. Malin Ackerman has never been better. Tony Hale is a revelation! Josh is excellent (and nothing like Ted Mosby). The little boy, Michael Algieri, is a natural. And Kate Mara -- omg! Not only is she gorgeous, funny and engaging, she's an amazing singer!! Watching her one feels a star being born. The songs by Jaymay -- which are the movie's score -- are perfect. And tech credits (cinematography, editing, production design) are fantastic.

Greetings again from the darkness. If such a thing existed in Hollywood, I wouldn't be surprised if Woody Allen brought a Trademark Infringement suit against writer/director Josh Radnor. There is even a clear reference to Mr. Allen, who must be one of Radnor's idols. Of course, similar ideas and approaches happen frequently in movies, so really what we have is a snapshot in time of what it's like to be a young (late 20's to early 30's) New Yorker trying to figure out life.

Radnor is one of the stars of "How I Met Your Mother" and this is his filmmaking debut. He does show some promise despite some weakness in the script and too dang many close-ups - talking heads, as I call them. His goal was to take an intimate look at relationships and the road to maturity, which is often filled with potholes. This seems especially true for those artistic types who are convinced New York is the only land of opportunity in existence.

There are 4 stories going on: Sam (Josh Radnor) is a struggling writer who meets Mississippi (Kate Mara), a cabaret singer/waitress; Mary Catherine (Zoe Kazan) and Charlie (Pablo Schreiber) have their relationship tested by a proposed move to L.A.; Annie (Malin Akerman) suffers from a self-image problem and faces off against a true romantic in Sam #2 (Tony Hale); and an on-going interwoven story line involves Sam's character making an asinine decision when a young boy gets separated from his family on the subway.

The best of the stories is Annie's. Suffering from an auto-immune disease which leaves her hairless, she has a real self-image problem in thinking that she is not worthy of love. On the ironic other hand, she is put off by the advances of nice guy Sam #2 because he isn't the physical specimen she had dreamed of. Akerman and Hale make these characters believable and we actually pull for them to figure it out.

Kazan's Mary Catherine just had me hoping Charlie would slap her and take off to LA on his own. Kazan (granddaughter of the great director Elia Kazan) actually does a nice job capturing the suffering that so many females put themselves through. Kate Mara's Mississippi is the perky on the outside, defensive on the inside type who should probably never get mixed up with the self-centered mess that is Sam (Radnor). Still, Mara's talent is on full display (she first leaped off the screen in Brokeback Mountain as Heath Ledger's 19 yr old daughter).

One thing the script reminds us is that this generation still believes the world revolves around their every decision. They have been a bit slow on the uptake here, but it makes for easy pickings in script writing. There are some terrific individual scenes, but some of the larger plot lines are not treated fairly or completely. Maybe Radnor tackled a bit too much for his first outing. Still, a decent effort and I look forward to more from him.

Being one of the most talked about films coming out of Sundance earlier this year, "Happythankyoumoreplease" made it's way to the Gen Art film festival and was presented as their opening night feature. Having heard all the buzz surrounding this film and usually enjoying most of the bigger films that come out of Sundance, I was very intrigued to see the film. Did the movie live up to the buzz or was it just overkill, continue reading to read my opinion on the film.

"Happythankyoumoreplease" features a talented and fresh cast of people. The basic premise of the film features the current generation of 20 somethings who live in NY. The story focuses on several characters and their battles with growing up, understanding how the world works, and ultimately what it means to fall in love with the right person for them. This interesting and feel good film was told by Josh Radnor, who not only directed but wrote the film.

The best way to describe "Happythankyoumoreplease" is a mainstream film with an independent budget. While the movie itself didn't really have an independent feel to it, I would say it did have some elements that made it feel "indie" so to speak. The well established actors and actresses in the film, a storyline that was very crowd pleasing, and overall pretty typical characters made it feel mainstream. However, the amount of character development along with some of the characters such as Malin Akerman's character Annie are the elements that gave it a more independent feel.

Like most good independent films, the well written characters and the actors who played them were the highlight of this film. Having never seen a single episode of "How I Met Your Mother" I was totally unaware of who Josh Radnor was and I was totally honest with him about it when I met him later in the evening. What he did with this film was good especially for a first time director and writer plus I give him even more kudos points for starring in the film as well.

The script, which as noted above was written by Radnor, is actually decent especially with mixing independent elements with mainstream elements. Some of the characters were rather typical such as Mississippi played by the talented Kate Mara and Sam #2 played by Tony Hale. These two characters felt like they were directly out of every movie you have seen in the past. Mississippi is the beautiful and talented singer who keeps falling for the wrong guy and then Tony Hale is the dork with the heart of gold. These characters aren't as deep as say Radnor's character Sam or Alkerman's Emma because these characters are just well written characters with a lot of depth. I will also have to point out that little Michael Algieri is a total scene stealer. Guarantee almost every woman who sees this film will fall in love with the kid. He is just adorable and his storyline, although it was not really fleshed out as much as I would like, was fairly interesting. All in all I felt everyone in the film played their roles well I just felt certain characters had more depth and others were too clichéd so to speak.

The overall message the film as I said was a feel good one. You knew where this film was going within the first 10 minutes and you knew exactly what was going to happen. The simplistic storyline was really the main thing that urked me about it. You had so many great lead actors and actresses and I felt the direction it took was just the typical one. I expected some stunners here and there but didn't get them despite in the beginning feeling like it was going to be a tad out of the ordinary. I cant really knock it too much though because I enjoyed it and really didn't feel it dragged at all. I guess I was just expecting more. I guess what I was expecting was the next "(500) Days of Summer" but this film wasn't it.

In conclusion, "Happythankyoumoreplease" won the audience award at the Gen Art film festival and the reason it won was because it was a crowd pleaser. This isn't an original work of art but its a fun little film with a talented cast and a simplistic overall story. The actors and the character development make it more worthy then most multiple character films similar to it but I still expected more from it than what I got. I guess for a first time writer and director its a good start and I think this film will do fairly well when it hits the local multiplexes later in the year.

MovieManMenzel's final rating for "Happythankyoumoreplease" is a 7 out of 10.