We all need some measure of control in our lives. Without it, that way madness lies.
Poor Candice Phee (Daisy Axon) has almost none. Her mother, Claire (Emma Booth), has retreated into chronic depression since the crib death of Candice’s baby sister. Her father, Jim (Richard Roxburgh), can do nothing about this; he’s also angrily estranged from his incredibly wealthy brother — known by Candice as “Rich Uncle Brian” (Joel Jackson) — believing he got screwed during a collaborative business venture.
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| Candice (Daisy Axon) enthusiastically helps new best friend Douglas (Wesley Patten) search for the perfect tree, in which to test his dimension-hopping theories ... which involve jumping from a high branch. (The horse just, well, appears at unexpected moments.) |
As a result, despite being not quite 13, Candice has learned to fend for herself. She’s a bright, inquisitive and — as far as her classmates are concerned — insufferably cheerful adolescent, always first to raise her hand when teacher Miss Bamford (Miriam Margolyes) poses a question.
Noting the rows of carefully sorted gel pens forever arranged on Candice’s desk — among her other affectations — “mean girl” Jen (Alessandra Tognini) waspishly refers to her as “Essen,” short for “SN,” as in “special needs.” Indeed, it’s easy to assume that Candice is a spectrum child, or even autistic.
But no: The carefully arranged gel pens, her devotion to vocabulary — she reads the dictionary — are simply her means of maintaining somesemblance of order in her life.
Director John Sheedy’s H Is for Happiness — available via Amazon Prime and other streaming services — is scripted by Lisa Hoppe, and adapted from Barry Jonsberg’s award-winning 2013 young adult novel, My Life As an Alphabet (a far superior title, by the way). It’s a poignant, carefully nuanced and at times droll slice of Australian whimsy.
Although the emotional content is deeply felt and persuasively depicted — laughter and heartbreak existing side-by-side — Sheedy’s stylized approach owes more than a little to eclectic directors such as Wes Anderson, Baz Luhrmann and Bill Forsythe.
Particularly the latter: Like Forsythe, Sheedy’s tableaus frequently include random individuals doing interesting — or unusual — things in the background, or at the fringes of a random shot. Cinematographer Bonnie Elliott’s efforts are deliberately stylized, her depiction of this colorful coastal town of Albany somewhat heightened, in the manner of 2001’s Amelie.
A touch of magic realism also infiltrates this narrative, whether in the antics — and wisdom — of the cross-dressing costume shop proprietor (George Shevtsov); or Miss Bamford’s distractingly active lazy right eye; or in the mysterious miniature white horse that inhabits the nearby woods.
The woods themselves have plenty of personality; Elliott often aims her camera directly overhead, into the thick top-growth, as the trees mumble, grumble and groan in the breeze. It’s hard not to think of the Ents, in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.
