Never has a title been more misleading. Happiness is a black comedy which revels in making light of the most lurid aspects of society. This is the darkest kind of humour. If you're laughing at anything darker than this, there's a reason you have no friends.

The film follows a variety of messed up characters, all of whom are connected in some way, as they face a crisis of sorts in their life. It takes place in a kind of psuedo-world where people don't have the filter that stops you saying things which you know will cut people deep. Add to this the use of clever contrasting cuts and inappropriately up-beat music, and you're left with an experience that's really quite unsettling, but in a more subtle way than a good horror film. It's unsettling because you're enjoying it.

Among the characters we have: a lonely middle-aged man who gets off by making dirty phone calls, a young woman looking for love but keeps finding it in the wrong places, an old married couple who have fallen out of love, and the crème de la crème, a paedophile who likes to rape his son's school friends. 'Crème' may have been a poor choice of words on reflection...

The way the film makes you perceive what's going on is very strange. It does the most shocking things you're likely to see outside of Lars Von Trier's filmography, but drags them out or words them or even just things as subtle as edits them in a way which makes them humourous. Not laugh out loud funny though. You find yourself trying to stifle the giggles because you know you shouldn't be laughing. And then you'll finally crack a chuckle and feel like a complete bastard for it. It's mean like that.

With a run-time of 2 hours and 20 minutes, it's pretty long, but there aren't really any dull points. My only problem with it is that a lot of the story threads never really seem to end; they just dwindle out. Having said that, it's a very good film. Definitely an experience as I've never seen anything else like it.

How can you not want to see a film which ends with a 10 year old boy announcing to his entire family "I came!"