Life During Wartime

R

Released Jul 23, 2010

1 hr. 38 min.

Comedy

Drama

List

68%

105 Reviews

Tomatometer

48%

5,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Nothing comes easily for Joy (Shirley Henderson) and her sisters, Trish (Allison Janney) and Helen (Ally Sheedy). Joy, unhappy with her job and her sleazy husband (Michael Kenneth Williams), is haunted by her dead boyfriend's ghost (Paul Reubens). Trish's pedophile husband (Ciarán Hinds) is behind bars, and she's ready to move on with her life. As an increasingly bitter Helen approaches middle age with a failing screenwriting career, it becomes clear her mother offers little comfort.

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Critics Consensus

With Life During Wartime, Todd Solondz delivers an unexpected semi-sequel to Happiness in typically uncompromising fashion.

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Dave S

With Life During Wartime, Todd Solondz again proves that he is probably the most divisive filmmaker working today. A follow-up to the characters he introduced ten years earlier in Happiness, it follows the miserable lives of three sisters, Joy (Shirley Henderson), Trish (Allison Janney), and Helen (Ally Sheedy) and the delusional characters who orbit their misery. Solondz manages to pull some very dark humor from mental illness, pedophilia, prescription drugs, depression, suicide, narcissism, nihilism and a host of other bleak subjects and manages to do it with some stylish panache. Of course, it's perfectly understandable that many will find the entire thing incredibly distasteful, hence the divisiveness. Those unfamiliar with Solondz will know within a matter of minutes what their feelings are about the film, so if you don't like the first scene you'll probably hate the whole thing…and vice versa.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

10/16/23

Full Review

cinephile f

I absolutely love Todd Soldonz because he will work with subject matter that other directors will not (I particularly love Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness, Storytelling, Palindromes and Weiner Dog) but I wasn't really that impressed with film. I love Happiness but this was just sort of meh. I want to see all of his films so if you are a fan like me, it's worth watching but I would have preferred a completely original story. I don't know why the original needed revisiting.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Christopher B

Most certainly a refined taste, Todd Solondz is a very unique and gifted Director whose films you will love or hate. I thought it was quite good and was filmed beautifully using the Red One Digital Camera which delivers a stunning image quality on the Blu-ray version. The film itself is the story of several unhappy and deeply wounded people who all have their own ways to deal with their problems, both good and sometimes fatal. Recommended if you can handle complex issues with real world results, not a happy ending where everyone lives happily ever after, or for that matter, lives.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

10/25/22

Full Review

dominique w

Other than a handful of sequences, "Life During Wartime" lacks the requisite focus to bring the concepts and characters of the far-superior "Happiness" in an interesting new direction.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Very strange movie . Very dark . Very indie . All mixed together it was in the middle of not very good and decent 2.9

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

11/30/20

Full Review

william d

After the seriousness of Palindromes Solondz returns to his wonderfully warped sense of humor with this excellent film.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

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Todd Solondz

Director

Shirley Henderson

Joy Jordan

Ciarán Hinds

Bill Maplewood

Allison Janney

Trish Maplewood

Michael Lerner

Harvey Weiner

Chris Marquette

Billy Maplewood

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Jennie Yabroff

Newsweek

Helen may not be for everyone, but to at least some of us, she's irresistible.

Feb 8, 2018

Full Review

Chuck Bowen

Slant Magazine

A wonderful, must-own transfer by the Criterion Collection of one of last year's best films.

Aug 1, 2011

Full Review

J. R. Jones

Chicago Reader

I'd never have predicted something this mediocre.

Jan 3, 2011

Full Review

Rene Jordan

El Nuevo Herald (Miami)

In the end the film is even more depressing than it was at the start. [Full review in Spanish]

Aug 8, 2022

Full Review

Troy Patterson

Spin

Life During Wartime presents scenes that feel as authentic as bad dreams, and sometimes that's happiness enough.

Rated: 3/4

Oct 25, 2019

Full Review

Mattie Lucas

From the Front Row

Solondz populates his strange little world with a host of wounded characters that are all fascinating in their own right, leaving a bittersweet and indelible impression.

Rated: 3/4

Aug 5, 2019

Full Review

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Synopsis

Nothing comes easily for Joy (Shirley Henderson) and her sisters, Trish (Allison Janney) and Helen (Ally Sheedy). Joy, unhappy with her job and her sleazy husband (Michael Kenneth Williams), is haunted by her dead boyfriend's ghost (Paul Reubens). Trish's pedophile husband (Ciarán Hinds) is behind bars, and she's ready to move on with her life. As an increasingly bitter Helen approaches middle age with a failing screenwriting career, it becomes clear her mother offers little comfort.

Director: Todd Solondz
Executive Producer: Elizabeth Redleaf, Mike S. Ryan
Screenwriter: Todd Solondz
Distributor: IFC Films
Production Co: Werc Werk Works
Rating: R (Language|Brief Nudity|Some Disturbing Dialogue|Strong Sexual Content)
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jul 23, 2010, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Feb 15, 2017
Box Office (Gross USA): $278.8K

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