The Happiness Meter

Don't ask college students to recognize happiness and unhappiness.

Or if someone does - say, their film professor - prepare to be wildly entertained by how they interpret both.

Tonight kicked off another semester of VCU Cinematheque with Mike Leigh's "Another Year," a film I'd seen in 2011 when it came out. But my date had never seen it and I can always enjoy rewatching a Jim Broadbent performance.

You can always tell it's early on at the Grace Street Theater because the place is packed. I know from past years that attendance waxes and wanes over the semester depending on what else is going on. Or perhaps college students just can't sustain a whole semester's interest in anything, hard to say.

Before the film began, the visiting professor told the students to watch the film with an eye  for what makes some people happy while others remain unhappy. He even went so far as to tell them to ponder what would make each of them truly happy.

Sorry, prof, but that's far too big a question for a roomful of teenagers.

The film moves through four seasons in the life of a happy older married couple, Tom and Gerri. It was interesting, though, because where my middle-aged date and I saw every sign of happiness between the couple, the students saw smugness and condescension.

The role of unhappiness was played by Mary, a co-worker of Gerri's, a divorced woman who claimed she was happy and yet whined and drank to daily excess. A woman so desperate she would unabashedly hit on the couple's 30-year old son. A woman perpetually having a crises.

In my opinion, a woman not happy with herself so unable to find happiness with anyone else.

As the film cycles through the year, we see the couple enjoying their life together - gardening, reading and talking in bed, making meals for themselves, family and friends - which often includes comments and looks between the two that are meant for no one else.

To my middle-aged eyes, it was easy to see the intimacy and affection of this couple who had been married for 30+ years and how they shared their bond with others.

When the movie ended, I told my date we needed to stay for at least part of the discussion, because past screenings have proven how entertaining and illuminating they can be.

Because once the post-film Q & A began, we were treated to a completely different way of viewing the film's story: through a millennial lens.

In a key scene where the divorcee meets the son's new girlfriend, she is rude and dismissive of the young woman, despite being at dinner in the home of his parents/her friends. Her disdain for the girlfriend and obvious disappointment that the son has a love interest is palpable. As a result, a rift develops between Gerri and Mary.

That rift is acknowledged in the next season, with Gerri suggesting Mary see a therapist and while Gerri is a therapist, she insists Mary see someone else. Ethics and all.

The college students were convinced something had happened in between the seasons that the director hadn't shown. Something unknown had caused the rift and they thought Gerri was callous not to be willing to counsel her friend.

And while I can chalk up them not knowing that a therapist wouldn't treat a friend to being millennial (and not having much life experience), not one of them realized that it was Mary's deplorable behavior at Tom and Gerri's home to their son's new girlfriend that had caused the problem.

Did a guest's obvious lack of civility and basic manners go completely unnoticed by the students in the theater? Sure did. That's why they were convinced something else had happened in the interim.

Even more bizarre was how the professor stressed that happy people were boring and only the unhappy ones were interesting. Including himself in the latter category, he found plenty of support among students who had a completely different read on Mary than we did.

Where we saw dysfunctional, they saw something they could relate to. Where we saw desperate, they saw gutsy. Where we saw depressed, they saw someone who couldn't catch a break.

It was bizarre.

Our differences in perception extended to Tom and Gerri because the students saw their pithy commentary and knowing looks as condescending, whereas we saw them as evidence of the kind of verbal and non-verbal shorthand that couples develop over the years.

It seemed that the students felt that the couple was looking down on people who weren't happy, while we felt like they went out of their way to share their home, hearth and happiness with a string of miserable people.

When one kid tried to bring some religious connotation that wasn't there to a scene, the more senior and knowledgeable of the professors clarified by saying director Mike Leigh took more of a communist than religious approach.

You could almost hear the gasps from some young filmmakers-to-be.

Another guy, in trying to explain his point, suggested that we all know the path to happiness is "marriage, have some kids and provide for them to eat," although his thesis soon ran (understandably) aground. Not a one of those things guarantees happiness, son. For that matter, they're not even required.

One movie, two viewpoints.

Happiness is being able to appreciate a screening where the discussion is almost as illuminating as the film.

Settling on a 7-Year Plan at Sette

If I needed an antidote to having recently seen True Grit, I got it tonight at the Westhampton seeing Another Year.

As a fan of director Mike Leigh's films, I knew to expect an ensemble of strong actors playing ordinary people, with loads of dialog and no pat happy endings.

Because the film is about a long-time happily married couple and the dysfunctional friends that are attracted to their stability, it was easy to see it first as a contrast between those lucky enough to find their soul mates and thrive together and those who don't.

But Leigh's films are so beautifully paced, unfolding in a decidedly un-cinematic way, that instead of focusing on the relationship haves and have nots, I found myself instead just enjoying the rarity of watching a long-time couple (frequently drinking wine and making pithy observations to each other) who still truly appreciate each other.

And I'm not totally unfamiliar with the concept anyway.

My parents are still more than happy with each other and I know two couples who continue to be poster children for long-term successful relationships.

Still, despite the overall darkness of the film, watching two people interact so intimately and satisfyingly made for a most affirming movie experience and one far more to my taste than a Western (even one with great language) ever could.

I had popcorn and Milk Duds at the movie because the box office guy gave me a free small popcorn voucher and a $2 candy voucher and I fell prey to both

"You want butter on that?" Duh. "You know 80% of people get their popcorn buttered?" Why eat it otherwise?.

Despite that, I went straight from the theater to Sette for dinner. The place was full of people on a Monday night.

Approaching the bar, the two people there immediately fled, causing me to say to the bartender, "I don't always have that effect on people."So you usually attract 'em?" he cracked.

Well, not necessarily, but clearing the room was a little disconcerting. Fortunately, a couple soon arrived and sat down near me, proving that I wasn't still repelling others.

The bartender told me that it was margarita/margherita night, meaning $3 margaritas and $7 margherita pizzas.

 "It's a great deal. Some of the frozen pizzas cost almost that much," he claimed, ever the salesman (and the second of the day to target me).

Deal or not, I could never be sold on a margarita, even given that tequila is the only thing I drink besides wine. Why on earth would anyone mess up fine tequila with anything but a slow-melting ice cube? But of course, margaritas so seldom involve fine tequila.

So I went with montepulciano d'abruzzo, and after enjoying my wine for a while, I let him convince me to try the margherita. Let's face it, if a pizza place can't do a margherita right, what hope is there for more elaborate variations?

I tend to stick to white pizzas, but Sette's fire-roasted tomato sauce was amply covered with Mozzarella and shredded basil, and I found it quite tasty, even more so after the bartender had grated a generous amount of Parmesan over it.

True, my plate looked like a blood bath when I finished due to extraneous tomato sauce, but that's a white pizza-loving girl's prerogative. Some, yes, all, no.

We chatted about his seven-year plan because he intends to leave the country at that point. He was feeling quite superior because his ex-wife just got pregnant with her new husband so her seven-year plan has now morphed into an 18-year plan.

Ouch. Sucks to be her, we agreed.

He asked and I had to admit that I don't have a seven-year plan, although I wouldn't mind it involving being part of a long-time couple-to-be, happily contrasting with all my dysfunctional friends.

And I already know how to drink wine and make pithy observations about others. It'll be just like in a Mike Leigh movie, except without the British accents.

And maybe better teeth.