UK trailer for Todd Solondz’s Life During Wartime is online

Todd Solondz (PALINDROMES, WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE) makes some very offbeat, difficult, and kinda f*cked up films. I dig him!

So if you’re a fan, you may be looking forward to his latest work, LIFE DURING WARTIME, a sort of sequel to his 1998 film HAPPINESS that features recast characters from both that and his 1995 work WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE. A few of those recast examples include Paul “Pee-Wee” Reubens in place of Jon Lovitz’s “Andy Kornbluth”, the rather terrific Ciarán Hinds (“Rome”, MUNICH) in place of Dylan Baker’s pedophile dad “Bill Maplewood”, and… get this… OMAR from “The Wire” (Michael K. Williams) in place of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s creepy perv character “Allen”. WTF?

The rest of the great cast includes Allison Janney, Ally Sheedy, Shirley Henderson, Charlotte Rampling, and Michael Lerner. All apparently turn in some great work (especially Hinds and Janney from what I’ve heard).

LIFE DURING WARTIME opens sometime later this summer.

Synopsis: Separated from her incarcerated husband Bill (Hinds), Trish (Janney) is about to be married again. Bill is a pedophile, so Trish couldn’t be more excited to have Harvey (Lerner), a “normal” father figure for her two sons. But when Bill is released from prison and the boys finally meet their future stepdad, the family is forced to decide whether to forgive or to forget. Trish’s sister, the virginal, angelic Joy (Henderson), is also haunted by ghosts of lovers past. On leave from her degenerate husband, Allen (Williams), and her job at a New Jersey correctional facility, Joy unwittingly leaves behind a trail of shame and exposed secrets wherever she goes. In one of the film’s most stylized sequences, the image of Joy walking the dark streets of Miami in her nightgown maintains her innocence against a backdrop of self-affliction and desire.