Happiness

« If you grow up loving and feeling loved, even a sludge farm can have its charms. » On the surface, it’s your typical extended family, suburban New Jersey style. Good Americans all, these relatives and friends are diligently searching for life’s most elusive ingredient. The three Jordan sisters are still trying to find their bliss. At age 30, Joy insists she’s getting better everyday. But Mr. Right hasn’t appeared, and the very married Trish secretly despairs that Joy won’t « have it all » the way she does. For her part, Helen, a best-selling author, has slipped into an angst that can only be relieved by something new and, preferably, kinky. Meanwhile, their parents are discovering that the Golden Years aren’t what they’re chalked up to be. Mona finds herself confessing to a real estate agent that at her age she has to get a divorce lawyer, while Lenny likes the idea of dying, but is too damn healthy to manage it. Then there’s Trish’s repressed psychiatrist hus-band, who seems oddly distracted and their pubescent son, who just wants to be a « normal » kid. There’s Helen’s strange neighbor, who’s always trying to bump into her « accidentally ». In the apartment down the hall, a lonely woman eyes him longingly. And in Joy’s adulted class, a Russian cabbie singlemindedly pursues the American dream. But the out of the blue comes an anonymous phone call or an unsettling visit to the shrink -and everything changes…