In the end the film is even more depressing than it was at the start. [Full review in Spanish]

| Aug 8, 2022

Life During Wartime presents scenes that feel as authentic as bad dreams, and sometimes that's happiness enough.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 25, 2019

Solondz populates his strange little world with a host of wounded characters that are all fascinating in their own right, leaving a bittersweet and indelible impression.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 5, 2019

With some hilarious scenes, but the majority are terribly heavy, slow and gruesome, Life During Wartime is one of those depressing films that will leave you with little more than a stomach ache... [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 1/5 | Mar 22, 2018

Helen may not be for everyone, but to at least some of us, she's irresistible.

| Feb 8, 2018

...mannered and self-conscious to an extreme.

| Original Score: 4/10 | Aug 10, 2016

There's a creepy torque to Life During Wartime that is uniquely Solondz, and the high probability of viewers' unease is part of his program.

| Apr 18, 2016

While "Happiness" chillingly depicted how all the characters succumb to desire and rejection, the new film's theme of their inability to exorcise the ghosts in their lives seems comparatively less grandiose.

| Oct 7, 2015

A daring tragicomedy revolving around the theme of forgiveness and forgetting in the post-9/11 years.

| Original Score: B+ | Aug 15, 2011

Strikes the right balance between funny, disturbing and truthful.

| Aug 4, 2011

works extremely well, especially in the way its challenging material is contrasted by the bright, sunny cinematography, which captures southern Florida in all its gaudy, inferno-ice-cream-colored splendor

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 3, 2011

A typically horny-thorny Solondzian dramedy...Solondz's is a universe of limitless disappointment. [Blu-ray]

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 1, 2011

A wonderful, must-own transfer by the Criterion Collection of one of last year's best films.

| Aug 1, 2011

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Apr 4, 2011

It feels a little wrong, even perverse, to describe a Todd Solondz film as 'fun'. But Life During Wartime - the sequel to his acclaimed and highly disturbing 1998 picture Happiness - is fun.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 5, 2011

I'd never have predicted something this mediocre.

| Jan 3, 2011

Definitely not a film for everybody, but (Todd) Solondz fans...will find plenty to chew on as he continues his exploration into the wounded lives of three sisters and their fractured families.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 27, 2010

Solondz... might have maintained sympathy for these characters before, but now seems to hate them as much as they hate themselves.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 8, 2010

A mere shadow of its predecessor.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 1, 2010

A perilous balancing act that the writer-director doesn't quite pull off, though he's populated it with an exceptional cast.

| Original Score: C+ | Sep 23, 2010