User Reviews

Everything about it is confusing and quite angering. How do you, a hustler, invite someone else to the house of your significant other then proceed to have sex with them while your partner is still in ge house. Then you question why he tells you to make him leave?

Not to mention how do you allow someone to bring another lover into your bedroom and not lose your mind and overreact. I'm sorry I guess I just don't understand why gay men can never be depicted as happy in films?

Like what did we really do to always deserve misery?

I'm sorry, but I just hated it. A bunch of pretty faces and nice bodies and a few moments of beautiful visuals are not enough to build a feature film upon. My simple standard is, that a good movie (even an art-house movie) should at least be involving and have a more or less coherent story to tell. If not, you might as well look out of the window for 80 minutes.

Here we have (or seem to have) some sort of premise (a movie-director who is trying to make a film), but the rest of the movie hangs around this premise like a loose and ragged coat, flapping to all sides on the winds of a totally incomprehensible story. We see an extremely unsympathetic young man with a constant grim and angry expression (the director) seduce a young and beautiful dancer, but afterwards he ignores him and turns to another young dancer. In the middle of the movie there's an overlong part where we see two men and a woman (not having anything to do with the aforementioned men) have sex with each other. Is it part of the movie that the director makes? A fantasy?? Now I do not object to graphic sex in a movie but it should at least serve some purpose and be staged somewhat attractively. Here it's neither, the wriggling and panting woman is anything but sexy and the very graphic details of this sexual threesome only seem to be intended to shock us viewers.

In the last part of the movie the grim director has sex with the new young dancer, pushes him away and accepts him once more, all for unfathomable reasons, at least as far as I am concerned. Oh, and occasionally they sing together. That's it: no conclusion, no moral, no nothing.

What stays behind is a feeling of emptiness and depression. If that was the goal of it all, the makers succeeded. It's a pity, because there are also enjoyable parts, like some beautifully choreographed dance-scenes, but these cannot compensate for the hollow pretentiousness of this movie. Maybe I'm not arty enough, maybe I missed tons of metaphors, but to me it was just boring and a waste of some pretty young guys.

I am happiness on earth, currently showing on Netflix (at least in Australia) reminds me of many art-house films I saw in the late 90's, early 00's; either in an alternate cinema or on VHS from a better video library.

It does not surprise me that many reviewers here didn't "get it". It was slow-paced and as is the case with many art-house movies, the viewer is almost a voyeur looking into the different scenes and the lives of the different characters.

The party scene was euro-lush taking the viewer there and building in excitement with the music and lighting. The rest of the movie has moments of bleakness; settings include bathrooms with graffiti; lounge rooms set in warehouses etc; it was all visually interesting.

One disappointment was that the actor playing dancer Octavia could not dance. To be honest he probably gave it a red hot go; for the untrained ballet moves can be very difficult; but Octavia's solo show was pretty embarrassing to watch. Other dance scenes also seemed lacking in technique.

What also surprised me was how many reviewers missed that the lengthy "ménage et trios" scene in the middle was the director's movie (as the credits rolled afterwards). I was quite confused while watching it (not to mention being questioned by my other half about the "soft porn" I was watching...lol) but the penny dropped eventually.

All in all I found this a stimulating movie to watch; much of the interest lies in the supporting details. It has stayed with me since I watched it and probably will for some time.

SPOILERS *** Such low ratings, as of today. It IS based on only 400 votes so far. For sure, after watching it once, there are many unanswered questions, but this is one film I'll happily watch again (at least) to try to figure a few things out. Circles. Cameras going in circles. Dancers going in circles. Stones, built in circles. Clearly a theme there. Several love and sexual interactions... our hero Emiliano has commitment issues; would rather hire someone for an hour than commit, but by the end, he says he wants a relationship. Not sure with who, though... that part was pretty confusing. Did he go back to the hustler when Octavio forgave him but wanted to move on? Some pretty abrupt jumps to a completely different story-line. In the center, we watch one group interact, and the whole time, I wasn't sure if that was a dream, or was the dude watching them just daydreaming of where he might fit into the dynamics. Good to see guys kissing, holding hands, and more. Gay guys and lesbians get to do so much more than in the ol' days. A lot of things going on in this one -- starts out with the director Emiliano hooking up with dancer Octavio. Then in the center, we spend SO much time with the group of three-- were they the three band members? Or did they live together? Then Emiliano hires a hustler, and isn't sure where he wants THAT to go. Then he kind of wants to be in a relationship with Octavio. And in between all these various scenes, we watch and hear numerous dancers talk about life, love, fear, and not sure what else. There is SO much going on, it gets confusing. subtitles are quite good. this one is currently showing on netflix. I'll definitely want to watch this again, and would recommend it to those with the patience to watch a long film where things aren't spelled out for the viewer. Will also try to find other things done by writer/director Julián Hernández. Some fun ideas. I'd give it a higher rating than it shows today, for sure.

From 0:37:00 to 1:20:00 the movie/story is interrupted by two looong scenes where 1) Gay dancer Octavio on being devastated/heart-broken would have sex with two dancer-girls he works with, and 2) where some unknown 3 peoples have sex in a soft-porn hart-house manner. The first one is so counterclock, girls, workmate and the second scene, I don't even wonder about and I won't loose time with this.

Yes that's 43 minutes off story, completely useless, extremely boring whatever your mood, test, sex orientation is. These 43 mn reminded me of an "artistic performance" I attended in Paris in 1986 with naked dancers, all parisian journalists exited about it and another one - same kind of provocation - in Broadway in 84. Pure provocative and useless stupidity.

What's crazy, is that the movie team/director/writer do explain themselves inside the movie, at 1:22:47, after these 43mn interruption, at the time Jazen and Emiliano talk about a movie and the dialogue is "They don't understand art-house movies, there are no dialogues and the movie is very long, but I liked it". Yes dudes, they think we're stupid.

At this point, you get a choice : You do get the insult as it is and rate it 1. This would make those pretentious tax-money founded so-called artists... happy. That's their goal, to prove that the general audience is to be educated the way they think. Or, take what's good in it, think whatever dirty word is in your mind to qualify this director and rate it for what's left good in it.

I watched it a second time to write this review and this it ! It worked, skipping these scenes ! I then understood that important scene on the plot just at 1:20 that I just missed, deconcentrated, probably thinking about something else, nearly sleeping, after that stupid pretentious 43 minutes.

What's left is a beautiful movie (remember, from 0 to 0:37 and 1:20 to the end). The camera dancing around dancers, gorgeous actors, photography, acting, a fantastic deep drama.

Alan Ramirez, I reed somewhere, is a professional dancer, so his acting is even more admirable, Hugo Catalan plays very well the broken and unhappy character he is, every little bit of expression of Emillio von Sternerfels is perfect and very well done.

The drama point maybe some reviewers didn't get, is that it very common gay couples make a difference between sex and love, being exclusive not a point. In this drama, Emilliano is an above standards sex addict. And he can't stand happiness (see now the movie title) and destroys whatever could lead to happiness. I understood revenge when Octavio sleeps with Jazen at Emilliano's house. Both did it to hurt him and that's why Jazen refused the money.

The song "Dos" at the end is cool, and couldn't determine who's cover it is from (Aznavour ? Iglesias ?), it's for sure one of those heard many years ago :-), It's copyrighted 1969 in the end credits, I should check that. Also, we loved seeing again that Mexico city arena "Espacio escultórico" in the park near the University that we did visit.

As a conclusion, my guess is, looks like a short, extended to an 80 minutes movie and filled up with another project in the middle.

I would rate it 9 if was 43mn shorter.