Happy Here and Now

Since premiering on the festival circuit in 2002, this small masterpiece has been one of the best films around not to secure a proper theatrical release, and while one week on a single L.A. screen at the height of the crowded holiday season may not exactly qualify as proper, it's nevertheless a joyous happening.

Isn't for everyone. It seems certain to confound as many viewers as it will inspire. But pic will foster a core critical contingent that will find itself transfixed and, ultimately, deeply moved by the film's ravishing power.

It's perhaps most remarkable as a sweet, mysterious portrait of pre-flood New Orleans, which Almereyda not incorrectly portrays as a land of wandering, uncertain souls.

Beautifully acted and filmed, with the Internet imagery rendered in Pixelvision.

Like some other contemporary films that try to stitch together a small army of characters into a community of sorts, Happy Here and Now feels like a symptom in search of a cure.

Rarely interesting, always confounding.

Almereyda's muddled Happy Here and Now should have stayed on the shelf - where it's been gathering dust for several years.