The Happy Poet is a low-budget film about a debt-ridden socially-awkward man’s entrepreneurial dream to create the fast food stand of the future — a solar-powered quick stop for organic vegan food. Receiving a laughably miniscule business loan of a mere $750, Bill (played by the film’s writer and director, Paul Gordon) is forced to make monthly payments to the owner of a small hot dog cart — not quite the grandiose green machine he envisioned. Regardless, Bill stocks up on local organic produce and compostable packaging to bring his healthy eating to the people of Austin.
Bill doesn’t get off to the start he imagines, and ends up giving away most of his food, writing them off as “free samples”, though they are more a product of his weak character than a planned business model. He finds the courage to persevere beyond that first failed day thanks to the enthusiastic response his cuisine receives from one customer, Curtis (Chris Doubek). Curtis ends up tagging along to help Bill out from that point on, with Bill’s friend Donnie (Jonny Mars) also joining the journey, offering his assistance with promotion and deliveries.
As the three central characters in the film, Bill, Donnie, and Curtis each fulfill a pretty two-dimensional stereotype. Bill is the passive, gauche, mediocre main character; Curtis is the hackeysack playing, weed smoking hippie-type; and Donnie is the alpha bro who is inevitably in pursuit of getting laid and makes the numerous obligatory male genitalia references. It’s an offbeat group done so many times that it loses any quirky potential. While using these generic character models isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s the The Happy Poet’s failure to move beyond the stale clichés that ultimately lets down. Aside from minor superficial developments, the characters never seem to experience any dramatic evolution.
The narrative is slow and clumsy at times, and the lack of soundtrack certainly doesn’t help; the only music is the occasional single-key piano strike to coincide with shot transitions and the thankfully rare, annoying, cycling repetitions of infantile melodies with scarcely enough notes to even be considered music. There is requisite romance in The Happy Poet, though it serves little more than making an already insecure movie even more uncomfortable. The film is most interesting during the climax, when the characters are torn apart, and Bill is more destitute and hopeless than ever. Unfortunately, the resolution to this conflict is a cheap, unrealistic happy ending — a gimmick that jumps forward in time to take the easy way out without any character-driven changes propelling it there. Fortunately, there are a few genuinely hilarious moments that save the film from being a waste of time.
The Happy Poet has a good heart and the right ideas. It’s great to see an environmentally friendly message wrapped in an amusing (biodegradable) package. But even the best intentions can have bad outcomes, and in the end The Happy Poet appears immature and amateur, not the heartwarming comedy it wants to be.
The Happy Poet made its New York City debut at the Rooftop Films 2010 summer series.
