(IMAGE: Random Media)
Other Animal, 2022. 98 minutes. Comedy
Grade: 3 out of 4
Fans of the Trailer Park Boys are most likely to feel the vibe of Happy FKN Sunshine, a sweary slice of Canadian lower-class aspirations, scams, drug deals, and dysfunctional families. The difference is that Ricky, Julian and Bubbles are now enough of an institution that there’s less jeopardy to their adventures these days – nobody really believes serious harm will come to them, no matter the insane risks they take. Put new characters into similar situations, and the safety net’s gone; like in the earlier TPB episodes, there’s more darkness hanging over the run-down mill town of this movie. Which makes the comedy feel like more of a lifeline.
With the mill workers on strike, everything else in the town comes to a dead stop, and incomes mostly stagnate, save those of Eddie (real-life playwright Ted Dykstra), the pawn shop owner, and Ronnie (Mattea Brotherton), the sassy drug dealer. Ronnie’s brother Will (Matt Close) remains a low-key optimist, hoping his band will get off the ground soon, if they can just add a bass player. And avoid the wrath of their abusive father Frank (Lewis Hodgson), who figures if he’s laid off, nobody else in his family should be doing anything but pitching in.
Will’s band, called Happy Fucking Sunshine, consists of angry bully Vince (Connor Rueter), slumming rich girl drummer River (Maxime Lauzon), and Will on guitar. They need a bass player, but the best (and possibly only) one in town is compulsive liar Artie (Dana Hodgson), who always has some tall tale full of famous rocker name-drops at the ready. Will’s okay with that, but Artie utterly infuriates Vince, who wants to beat him up every time he mentions a supposedly famous friend. It doesn’t hurt the band though, that Artie’s uncle Eddie not only runs the pawnshop, but also has recording equipment in his basement. When Ronnie agrees to manage the band, after using her drug money to get Will a new guitar, the siblings have but one mission, besides booking a gig: keep their singer and new bassist from murdering each other.
Lots of movies about rock dreams tend to feature bands and/or singers so perfect that it stretches credibility to imagine nobody would see their talent, or music so mediocre it doesn’t work well enough (Down and Out With the Dolls comes to mind). Happy FKN Sunshine (the middle word is fully spelled out in the opening credits) gets it more right. This is a band you’d totally get into at a drunken party, but they’re probably not going to record one of your all-time favorite albums. They’re good enough, but yet to be great. You root for them because their only alternative is the mill, which grinds down people as much as it does anything else, though the union pays for funerals. And in due course, we see just why Artie is such a liar – it’s a coping mechanism for a home situation that’s simultaneously darkly funny and disturbing.
“Music’s a great hobby, but it’s a shit life,” says Eddie, pointing out that as drab as the mill is, it feels easier to most people than taking a chance with band members who may abandon or betray them when the going gets even slightly hard. But all Will has to do is look at the older generation – Artie’s brain-damaged father, or Frank, who poaches bear meat, and in one brilliant bit of character business looks genuinely torn between whether to smoke a cigarette or sip his beer in a moment that seems to call for both equally. Optimism isn’t to be found there, so Will will have to find it in himself.
Director Derek Diorio, who began his career as a writer on Teddy Ruxpin and You Can’t Do That on Television, relishes his profanities exactly as much as a man who used to have to keep it clean would. Even the chapter headings in this movie have curse words. They may not all be necessary, but they are funny, if you’re not the easily offended sort. He shoots small-town decay the way so many might remember it from their teen years; the drabness and poverty adults have adapted to is only starting to come into focus for the young folks, and they have a brief window to escape the only ways they know how. It’s either got to be drugs, music, or money to relocate. Maybe all three. Or the gloom will consume.
It’s just as well Will remains naturally cheery, somehow. Because everyone else, including the audience, depends on him. All too often, movies mislead us into thinking that betting everything on one last shot is the only way to nail a dream. In fact, keeping the right attitude throughout ups and downs, rather than holding out hope for specific circumstances, is more likely to make the dream work in the long haul. Happy FKN Sunshine gets that it’s up to you to be that happy GD ray of light to get where you need to go, not on the attainment of the goal to make you happy. And when it makes you laugh, it’s giving you a hand up.