All\'s well that ends swell. <BR>&nbsp;

All\'s well that ends swell.

Happy Endings starts off with a bang \'as Mamie (Lisa Kudrow) runs into the path of a car. Writer / Director, Don Roos lets us know, in captions, that she doesn\'t die \' that this film is in fact a comedy. Happy Endings is Roos\' follows up to Bounce and The Opposite of Sex and like the recent Oscar winner for Best Picture, Crash, this film tells multiple stories concurrently, with a cast of big names. The film, which follows three main characters, soon reveals that Mamie has been blackmailed by young filmmaker, Nicky (Jesse Bradford), forcing her confront her feelings about the son she gave up for adoption. Nicky wants to film the reunion for a documentary, which leads to a rather strange subplot where Mamie and her masseuse boyfriend, Javier, (Bobby Carnavale) divert Nicky from the adoption story, by pitching to him another film idea - about masseurs providing \'happy endings\' for rich women. The title of the film is the first giveaway that Roos is interested in looking at the consequences of sex \' both emotionally and literally. The other two threads are equally as complicated. Mamie\'s stepbrother, Charley (Steve Coogan) is obsessed with the idea that his boyfriend is the unwitting father of a lesbian couple\'s child, played Laura Dern and Sarah Clarke. Charley and Gil (David Sutcliffe) adopt deplorable, sitcom-esque methods to figure out the truth. And lastly - Jude (Maggie Gyllenhall), manipulates a rich father and his gay son (Tom Arnold and Jason Ritter), for money and a place to live. The first 30 minutes of Happy Endings are engaging, but it rapidly lost my attention. You almost need an instruction manual to keep up with this multi - narrative film, and director Don Roos almost provides one. His captions appear with irritating regularity, constantly commenting on the story and his characters with smug one-liners. The captions are intended to provide back story to the characters and the events, but wear out their welcome. It\'s as though Roos can see the problems with the script already, so by including his own commentary \' he can stop anyone from criticising. However Tom Arnold, Lisa Kudrow and Maggie Gyllenhall are brilliant, bringing depth to characters made overly complex through Roos\' writing. It\'s because his script is untidy and can\'t find a balance between the quirky and the serious. No topic is too small - the abortion debate, adoption, gay parenting \' it\'s exhausting. I do appreciate Roos willingness to tackle these thorny issues and to portray women and men as the flawed people that we all are, but he lacks focus. There\'s too many stories, too many characters, and way too many endings!