Free Movie Review On Happy: 2011 Documentary

Happy documentary movie is about the creative peak of the career of Roko Belic. He is an Academy award winning director and a visionary thinker. He has given a whole new definition of Positive psychology through the medium of this amazing movie. This paper is an analytical review of the film. This paper also gives a bird’s view on the opinions of some of the famous reviewers and professionals about this movie.
The cast and crew who helped to bring this movie from scratch to the peak of success deserve an introduction. Roko Belic, is a young and enthusiastic, Sundance award winner director for his ‘Genghis Blues’ documentary in 1999. He had a rather interesting journey that began with an epiphany about making this movie. His conversation with Tom Shadyac inspired him to make this movie. He interviewed more than hundreds of people starting from a rickshaw driver in Kolkata, India to various places of earth. The compilation of those interviews about happiness is the essence of this movie. It is amazing to see how different people have different psychology and philosophy about happiness in their lives.
In his efforts of making this movie, producer Eiji Han Shimizu and Frances Reid had also a lot of contribution. The executive producer of this movie is Tom Shadyac himself. The creative editing team contains Vivien Hillgrove and cinematographer Adrian Belic.
The movie was release on 9th April 2011. It is 73 minutes long and it was released in United States. The total budget of the movie is 700,000 $. Another fun fact about this movie is that it was a crowd-funded movie. The producers turned to the people to donate and fund the last parts of the movie.
The movie had a lot of awards and accolades. It was the winner of best documentary in Maui film festival. It was winner of audience choice award in Mendocino film festival. It was winner of best documentary film in Rincon, Mexico and Arizona film festivals. It was winner of grand jury prize in Amsterdam film festival. It was also the winner of student’s choice in telluride mountain film festival.
According to Jenaa Goudreau. (10 Oct. 2012), the footages of happy movie has a lot of insight on the ways of being happy from different perspectives. The author also gives various steps to be happy through her elaborated analytical review of this movie.
As per the review of Walter Addiego. 2011 the movie is blissful gift to introspect the inner strength and happiness as a human being. He also mentions that the movie leads the path of happiness by giving the means to turn everyday miseries into happiness.
According to SF360’s interview transcript with Roko Belic, the director gives the answers about the movie and his journey as a director and philosopher about happiness. In one of the sequence of the movie, Manoj Singh, who is a rickshaw driver in Kolkata, India considers himself lucky despite of his low income and low life style. Being happy is the basic nature of human beings. Even in the worst possible conditions, each human being eventually finds his own way to be happy. That is the message that this movie carries fluently.
According to Jeffery Peterson’s review of the movie, he tells that the movie is rather short in the run time of 73 minutes. There is so much that the movie can tell if it was longer than 73 minutes. However, the movie succeeds in its attempt to find the attention of people across the globe.
The movie opens with the play where the adults are doing novel physical activities like racing in gorilla costumes. The concept behind such an introduction is to show the audience about the monotonous lifestyle, especially work life of people. In this fast modern age, it is equally miserable lifestyle of high-society people and low society people. Both suffer equal amount of unhappiness, the only difference is the cause of unhappiness. A poor guy will be unhappy because he is unable to provide for his family. A rich person will be unhappy because of lack of intimacy between his own families despite of abundance of physical means.
Thus the movie proves the point of discovering happiness through scouting and scavenging minds of various people across the world. By looking into other’s point of view, one can discover his own happiness.
The heart touching stories of Louisiana family who brakes crabs and enjoys daily beer with satisfaction and happiness. Also the story of a traumatized woman who met with an road traffic accident, but still shows her happiness.
It is amazing to know that the director himself found out all the stories showed in the movie. None of the stories came to him through any other source. His hard work and dedication brought the movie to life.

Works Cited

"'Happy' documentary argues that everyone can become happier." by Jeffrey Peterson. 14 Feb. 2012: <http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865550146/Happy-documentary-argues-that-everyone-can-become-happier.html>.
"'Happy' review: Want bliss? Go with the 'flow'." by Walter Addiego. SF Gate 1 Jul. 2011: <http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Happy-review-Want-bliss-Go-with-the-flow-2366342.php>.
"Movie Explores Why US Ranks 23rd of Happiest Countries - See more at: http://www.success.com/article." 7 May. 2012: <http://www.success.com/article/movie-explores-why-us-ranks-23rd-of-happiest-countries>.
"Roko Belic Charts Path to ‘Happy’." by Susan Gerhard. SF360 6 Jul. 2011: <http://www.sf360.org/?pageid=13678>.
"Top Seven Ways To C'Mon Get Happy." by Jenaa Goudreau. 10 Oct. 2012: