'Life During Wartime,' distant sequel

Todd Solondz's "Happiness," a 1998 comedy-drama about three sisters and their not-so-happy lives, still stands as one of the most brilliantly appalling movies ever made. Given that one of its central characters was a child-raping therapist who was not only likable but downright hilarious, it's astounding the film ever got made. Try greenlighting that today.

More than a decade later, Solondz revisits the Jordan sisters in "Life During Wartime." Chronologically, it is a sequel, but not a single principal actor from the original is here. The cast is entirely new.

This may have been entirely by choice, but Solondz's replacements feel somewhat random. Ciáran Hinds brings a new gravitas to Bill Maplewood, the pedophile originated by Dylan Baker. But Shirley Henderson, as the wide-eyed folk singer Joy Jordan, is merely a Jane Adams look-alike. Philip Seymour Hoffman, who memorably played a creepy crank caller, is replaced by a towering black actor, Michael Kenneth Williams.

Solondz still has a knack for squirm-inducing situations; one exchange between Bill and an aging bar girl (Charlotte Rampling, fiercer than ever) is absolutely hair-raising. But too many scenes involve two actors conversing in a room, as if Solondz needed to shoot fast and avoid editing. "Life During Wartime" feels like a labor of love, which for fans of "Happiness" may have to be enough.