Happiness Runs
2010 • Feature Film • ReleasedComedy, DramaVictor is a young boy who begins to realize the shortcomings of the utopian ideals of the hippie commune where he was raised. He and his friends run free through a life devoid of adult involvement, as their parents, including Victor's mother, have become little more than deluded shells under the seductive ideas of the guru Insley. Preoccupied with Insley's free love philosophy, the adults of the community overlook the painful reality that the self-destructive behavior of their children is most certainly due to early exposure to sex and drugs. Victor's world is further complicated by the return of Becky, his childhood love, who is drawn back to the commune by the terminal illness of her father. Fully the product of her environment, Becky is a whirlwind of promiscuity and drug use. It is Becky's state - forever on the verge of collapse - that finally leads Victor to understand that there is no future for his generation at the commune. His quest for escape drives the film, as he searches for any source of support in his desire to get away and begin a life of his own - a life freed from the oppressive "freedom" that defines the commune.
Victor is a young boy who begins to realize the shortcomings of the utopian ideals of the hippie commune where he was raised. He and his friends run free through a life devoid of adult involvement, as their parents, including Victor's mother, have become little more than deluded shells under the seductive ideas of the guru Insley. Preoccupied with Insley's free love philosophy, the adults of the community overlook the painful reality that the self-destructive behavior of their children is most certainly due to early exposure to sex and drugs. Victor's world is further complicated by the return of Becky, his childhood love, who is drawn back to the commune by the terminal illness of her father. Fully the product of her environment, Becky is a whirlwind of promiscuity and drug use. It is Becky's state - forever on the verge of collapse - that finally leads Victor to understand that there is no future for his generation at the commune. His quest for escape drives the film, as he searches for any source of support in his desire to get away and begin a life of his own - a life freed from the oppressive "freedom" that defines the commune.
