Overrated

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

One of the most clever, bold, brilliant, modern, unique, smart, excellent TV series I've ever seen. A new concept combining drama (without easy emotional excitement), dark comedy, high quality humor, twists, a radical script and an excellent direction. The type and use of music is marvelous. The basic actors are brilliant, and must admire Steve Coogan (known to many as Alan Partridge) for accepting such a role to enhance his comical talent to another level. If you could remove the American accent and put British instead, you could be have the impression that this is maybe a British series. Apart from the fact that all issues and plot themes are mainly American. If you have doubts that all around us is perfect, if you believe that maybe we don't live in a perfect world, if you are tired of all clichés and hypocrisy, and finally if you like real art TV, then you must watch it. No doubt why the series is cancelled in America. It's too perfect,provocative and keen.

I was impressed that memoirist Shalom Auslander ("Foreskin's Lament"!) had persuaded Showtime to turn his random reflections—on human existence, the mercy of God (or lack thereof), parenting, advertising, sex and Jewishness—into a cable sitcom, but we could only stay with it for six episodes. Steve Coogan and adorable Kathryn Hahn do their best, and there are some funny bits, but I'm guessing a lot of it will seem like you've heard it before, more than once (maybe starting with the first time you got stoned with your freshman year roommate).I'm also guessing this is one of those shows, like "Frankie and Grace" on Netflix, that gets extra points from TV execs because it fills a demographic niche—in this case, forty-somethings who have ambivalent feelings about millennials and are afraid they'll never be cool again Would have been interesting to see what Philip Seymour Hoffman (!עליו השלום), who had originally signed on to play the Coogan part, would have done with it, I admit. On the + side, "Happyish" has a strong supporting cast (Bradley Whitford! Carrie Preston!), some cute animated sequences (not including IMHO the one where Coogan's character—"Thom Payne"!—schtups a Keebler elf), and a convenient time slot (between "Nurse Jackie" and "Veep") for oldsters who still watch scheduled programming on cable, but we still found it fairly tedious, unoriginal and kind of depressing after a while. Btw, Noah Baumbach's "While We're Young" (available on disk from N'flix) explores some of the same boomer-vs.-millennial themes in a much subtler and more entertaining way, IMHO.

I've started watching this show yesterday and I'm on 4th episode at the moment. The current rating of 6.9 is too low for this show, IMO. US voters gave lower ratings than those of us who live outside of USA. Maybe it's because Americans don't know Coogan or they don't like to see a Brit in the leading role. I am a big fan of Coogan and he is magnificent in "Happyish". Recently I've seen the actress who's playing his wife in "Transparent", another great new show."Happyish" reminds me of Woody Allen's movies, the protagonist is troubled with existential crisis and the show deals with different aspects of media culture, current corporate climate, parenthood and middle age. It gives us a strong social commentary and the critique of contemporary culture. It juxtaposes the new world of young and cocky executives with the world of middle aged people who are trying to find their place in this new and fast-changing world.When Lee talks about her "bubble", she mentions that she is not on Facebook or Twitter, in that way she protects her family from outside intruders. I like that message a lot. When I think about it, I see a lot of families who share photos of their children on social network sites, some even open Facebook profiles for their newborn babies. People document every mundane experience and post about it - we've became extremely narcissistic and dependent on approval of others through fishing for Facebook "likes" and such. I'm 29 y.o., but I can relate to Mr. and Mrs. Payne a lot more than to any other character on this show.

Caught this last night and was pleasantly surprised - hadn't read about it beforehand, didn't realize Coogan and John Cameron Mitchell were involved, so I was doubly pleased.Coogan's character sets the tone perfectly from the get-go, with his 'f-you' voice-over regarding Mount Rushmore: we know we're in for a no-holds-barred look at these peoples' lives, and that is indeed what we get in the half-hour pilot, which could have gone on longer, as far as I'm concerned. This subject - trying to find the balance between what you get in Life and what you think you wanted - perfectly illustrated by the show's title - has been covered before, many times. But Happyish surprisingly manages to conjure a fresh take on it, because of the individuality of the characters. Good writing, excellent acting, huge watchability factor, with plenty of room to grow, and I am most definitely in.