Separated from her incarcerated husband Bill (Ciarán Hinds), Trish (Allison Janney) is about to be married again. Bill is a pedophile, so Trish couldn’t be more excited to have Harvey (Michael Lerner), a “normal” father figure for her two sons. But when Bill is released from prison and the boys finally meet their future stepdad, the family is forced to decide whether to forgive or to forget. Trish’s sister, the virginal, angelic Joy (Shirley Henderson), is also haunted by ghosts of lovers past. On leave from her degenerate husband, Allen (Michael Kenneth Williams), and her job at a New Jersey correctional facility, Joy unwittingly leaves behind a trail of shame and exposed secrets wherever she goes. In one of the film’s most stylized sequences, the image of Joy walking the dark streets of Miami in her nightgown maintains her innocence against a backdrop of self affliction and desire. Only from the Fed up brain of the creator of “Welcome To The Dollhouse,” could a movie like this be born. The distinctive, boundary-pushing writer-director has had the eccentric inspiration to resurrect the same central characters from his 1998 movie “Happiness” a decade later, but using entirely different actors.
Life During Wartime
Life During Wartime Release Date: July 23, 2010
