Accepted as his masterpiece, “Hapiness” uniquely represents Todd Solondz’s cinema. Intertwining several stories of lonely, desperate and fragile characters, the film combines a exquisite irony, but also a compassion for these men and women struggling to survive in a cruel world. Playing with the clichés of American soap opera and its melodramatic pressures, “Hapiness” is a scathing suburban middle class’ description and its paranoias, in which sexual desire is almost the single engine for a “happy” life. With a central role in the narrative, Philip Seymour Hoffman has one of his most powerful constructions here, creating Allen, a loner looking for love. (DR)