Life During Wartime

“The scars of the past haunt us, even in our quest for redemption.”

Joy Jordan (Shirley Henderson) wants to forgive the people in her family and be forgiven in return, and she keeps trying. Todd Solondz picks up the characters from Happiness with new actors in the roles, among them Allen (Michael Kenneth Williams) and Helen Jordan (Ally Sheedy). The comedy and the grief sit side by side, and the question running through every scene is whether people can forgive what they have done and what has been done to them.