Starring: Daisy Axon, Richard Roxburgh, Miriam Margolyes, Emma Booth, Joel Jackson, Deborah Mailman, Wesley Patten, Alessandra Tognini, George Shevtsov
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Runtime: 98 mins. Reviewed in Feb 2020
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While searching for a word to give an indication of how H is for Happiness affects the audience, a fellow critic remarked that it was “whimsical”. And that is definitely the word.
The question does arise as to who is the intended target audience. With a 12-year-old boy and girl at the centre, definitely for that age group, lower secondary, older primary. Maybe not older teenagers who think they might be beyond that stage of life. However, many a parent will enjoy it making allowances for the whimsy, then entering into it.
Audiences don’t often see a film made in Albany, Western Australia. Here is an excellent opportunity, the town, the sea and the islands, the surrounding forest, the old buildings from the 19th century, and life in the 21st-century.
At the centre of the film, and responsible for a lot of the whimsy, is a 12-year-old girl called Candice, redhead, an extraordinary number of freckles on her face, ultra-studious, extensive vocabulary in her voice-over, telling her story, of her parents, of her sister who died in cot death, more than conscientious in her responses in class (to the irritation of fellow classmates, including a couple of bullies), wanting to fix everything, especially with her parents, her grieving mother, her father who has clashed in business with his brother, reconciliation all round.
She is played with conviction a and a great deal of self-assurance by Daisy Axon. A persuasive performance.
In fact, there is a very strong supporting cast including Richard Roxburgh as Candice’s father, Emma Booth as her mother, Joel Jackson as (Candice always referring to him as this) Rich Uncle Brian. And there is Miriam Margolyes as the class teacher (with an extraordinary rolling eye) and Deborah Mailman as the mother of the little boy, Douglas (quite a charming performance from Wesley Patten), who has had a fall from a tree with the consequence that he thinks he is from another planet (from among many) who is devoted to Candice (even proposing) and whom she always refers to as Douglas Benson from Another Dimension!
So, plenty of plot details. All the story of Candice’s attempts to encourage her mother in her grief, to reconcile her father with her Rich Uncle Brian. Plot details with the school work, the task of preparing for presentations to the parents, urged by Miriam Marglyes Miss Bamford, each of the children taking a letter of the alphabet for their presentation. Needless to say, the conscientious Candice enlightens the audience with all kinds of possibilities for each letter of the alphabet.
There are many unexpected complications but audiences will be delighted in Candice’s and Douglas’s final presentation, a tribute to win over her parents, remembering her mother’s love for Nashville, Candice and Douglas, with Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers wigs, lip-syncing Islands in the Stream.
How else could there be anything else but happy ending!
Peter Malone MSC is an Associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting.
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