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HAPPYTHANKYOUMOREPLEASE

"Attitudes of Gratitude"

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What You Need To Know:

HAPPYTHANKYOUMOREPLEASE is a small romantic comedy about three twentysomething couples in New York. They include the protagonist, a freelance writer, and a woman gone bald due to a skin condition, a lawyer, a female bartender, and two of the protagonist’s friends. The couples struggle with fears of commitment and the dissatisfaction of modern promiscuous relationships. By the end, everyone moves towards a more pure and honest belief in true, lasting love and monogamy. They also strive to adopt a more grateful attitude to all life brings. Also, the protagonist tries to help a young African-American boy caught in the foster care system but with a budding artistic genius.

HAPPYTHANKYOUMOREPLEASE is very enjoyable. Its winning performances, likable characters, colorful sense of place, and believable dialogue add up to an unforgettable debut film for its first-time director. Even so, the movie’s early part has a cavalier attitude towards premarital sex (a subject implied and discussed, but not graphically photographed). And, there’s strong foul language, including about 20 “f” words. Thus, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution for HAPPYTHANKYOUMOREPLEASE. The filmmakers could easily have cut down the lewd content to make a more audience-friendly movie.

Content:

(RoRo, B, Ab, LLL, S, N, AA, MM) Strong Romantic worldview with some moral elements leading to commitment in male/female relationships, but lead character sarcastically asks a woman who declines to sleep with him on their first date, “Is this some sort of Jesus thing?”; at least 27 obscenities and profanities (mostly “f” words); no violence; three implied sex scenes, lead character and his love interest enter an agreement for a “three-night stand” when she says she doesn’t want a one-night stand and even draft a contract where she gains access to his apartment keys for three days, but characters frequently express their disappointment in their own and others’ promiscuous behavior, as they strive to find a solid monogamous relationship, and the one couple who live together get engaged and have a refreshingly positive view of the life they’ve created when the female discovers she’s pregnant; upper male nudity; alcohol use and one female character is a bartender; no smoking; and, lying, deception and no reliance on God.

More Detail:

Quality wise, HAPPYTHANKYOUMOREPLEASE is a delightful surprise, an indie film about twentysomething singles in New York City who want to find true love and learn to mature into more moral behavior and commitments over the course of the picture. Writer-director Josh Radnor (known best thus far for his regular role on the CBS sitcom “How I Met Your Mother”) aptly takes the reins of the kind of movie Woody Allen once mastered and has long since lost his touch for: heartfelt romantic dramedies with finely etched characters and good dialogue. The movie has some lewd content and immoral decisions, however.

Radnor also stars as Sam, a freelance writer who stumbles across a young African-American boy named Rasheen (Michale Algieri, in an affecting debut) after he becomes separated a woman whom Sam mistakenly believes is his mother. Instead, the boy was with a foster parent and purposely broke free from her control. This leads Sam to shelter him for a few days while he figures out how to help this boy who won’t explain why or how, but has clearly been victimized by the foster system.

Sam’s friendship with Rasheen is beautifully depicted, with Sam experiencing fatherly feelings for the first time in his life, as he guides his young charge to express himself artistically and discovers the boy is a budding art genius. Meanwhile, Sam’s friends include Mary Catherine (Zoe Kazan) and Charlie (Pablo Schreiber), who are debating whether to live in New York or Los Angeles at the same time that Charlie wants her to marry him, against her often-expressed fears that any marriage that includes her will fall apart.

Meanwhile, Sam’s best friend, Annie (Malin Akerman), a gorgeous woman who’s gone bald due to having the skin condition of alopecia, learns to quit looking for the next bad-boy hunk. She decides to give a chance to the nerdy but extremely nice and devoted Sam #2 (Tony Hale), a lawyer at the charity where she works.

The first Sam’s trying to overcome his own fears of commitment. He’s, immediately drawn to a gorgeous and ethereal female bartender named Mississippi (Kate Mara), who’s desperate to break away from her promiscuous past yet falls into that same trap with Sam. Yet, by the end, everyone is moving towards a more pure and honest belief in true and lasting love and monogamy, striving to adopt a grateful attitude to all life brings.

HAPPYTHANKYOUMOREPLEASE is enjoyable. Its winning performances, likable characters, colorful sense of place, and believable dialogue add up to an unforgettable debut film for Radnor.

Regrettably, the early part of the movie has a cavalier attitude towards premarital sex, which results in some immoral choices. The subject matter is not dealt with in a graphic manner, however. The movie also has plenty of strong foul language, including about 20 “f” words. Thus, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.

Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.

What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.

You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.

Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.


Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.

What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.

You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.

Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.