all in the timing; The comedy Happy Endings stars Maggie Gyllenhaal and Lisa Kudrow, while Me and You and Everyone We Know is an uproarious debut.(Movie Review)

A big, bright pinata of a movie, Happy Endings is bursting with surprising things-abortion, blackmail, kinky sex, illegal immigration, and profound emotional betrayal. Needless to say, it's a comedy. Lisa Kudrow stars as Mamie, an uptight L.A. businesswoman with a guilty past who's involved with two handsome outsiders: her boyfriend, Javier (Bobby Cannavale), a Mexican masseur, and a would-be filmmaker, Nicky (Jesse Bradford). Mamie's path intersects with that of Jude (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a streetwise loner who schemes her way into the bed of a rich widower, Frank (Tom Arnold), after sleeping with his closeted son, Otis (Jason Ritter). Otis, in turn, is hot for Charley (Steve Coogan), a goofy gay restaurateur who just happens to be Mamie's stepbrother-and got her pregnant when they were teenagers. Whew!

Happy Endings is the brainchild of writer-director Don Roos (The Opposite of Sex), whose work has the exuberant messiness of early Pedro Almodovar. His rococo scenario serves up too many plot lines, too many jokey intertitles, and too many endings. No matter. It still crackles with life. Aware that absurdity and pathos are Siamese twins, Roos creates characters who start off silly, then gradually move us with their wounded humanity. He even pulls off a feat I thought impossible: He makes Tom Arnold so vulnerable you may find yourself getting misty.

Like Almodovar, Roos has a special love ...