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Highly Overrated But Still Good

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Generally good but I have to remove some stars for a couple of reasons (were it not for these, it might have deserved around 9 stars —though I wonder if I am being too generous at that).The first reason is the way it, effectively, holds up the nation of Bhutan as an example for the rest of the world to follow. While they do tangentially touch on things which might be seen to hint at a possible authoritarian streak in this parliamentary monarchy when they mention legally enforced manner of dress, language and architecture (presumably treating their citizens like school children who must be required to wear uniforms "for their own good"), they never follow through on them. In any case, letting anyone brag, unchallenged, about how this nation handles its social systems is simply inappropriate. This is a nation whose policies make Donald Trump seem like a flower child. This is a nation which ethnic cleansed itself of roughly one sixth of its population in the 1990s. I wonder if these expelled ethnic Lhotshampa count toward Bhutan's Gross National Happiness? When, to make a positive example of this nation, this documentary claims that this nation's government tasks itself with asking what it is that makes its people happy, we must wonder if ethnic cleansing (and enforced conformity) is meant to be part of the answer.While this does not mean that there can't be any positives in the politics of this country, it is not acceptable to sweep some very serious shortcomings under the rug (which no one would know about from watching this documentary).The second reason I must subtract some stars is their treatment of Mother Teresa's Kalighat Home for the Dying. While I have no reason to doubt anything relating to state of mind of the volunteer they talked to, one cannot ignore the fact that it is happening in a setting known for widely reported issues of willful negligence in the care of their patients (if not, at times, outright abuse). It is a setting created around a dogma, which was held by Mother Teresa, of suffering as virtue. It is not so much that suffering is seen as an inevitable state but that it is seen as a desirable one. Ignoring this context, promotes a faulty, popular mythology of Mother Teresa. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_TeresaSee criticisms by Aroup Chatterjee, Christopher Hitchens and Susan Shields.

Great movie. When I watched this movie it made me feel that happiness is obtainable. Through religion, and doing the right thing. I believe this movie taught a very valuable lesson as in if you do good things, it can make you feel good. People think scientific facts would matter but science doesn't define emotions. Some things are unexplainable in life for a reason. I think this is great, and enjoyable to watch. I have seen this movie multiple times when I was upset and it always brought me out of my funk and helped me feel positive again. I showed this movie to many members of my family and it made them not only get emotional, but they felt this was a great guide to become a happy person.

Yes, instead of Gross National Product, the tiny country of Bhutan, nestled in the eastern end of the Himalayas, focuses on Gross National Happiness. In direct contrast to a country like Japan, where workers under too much job-related stress to increase efficiency and minimize errors are dying way too young.That in a way captures the focus of this film, "Happy." It examines the human characteristic of "happiness", what it really is, how one achieves it, and how it relates to our lives in total. The film is a good mixture of human examples in the real world, and researchers explaining their findings.The very first person profiled is a very poor, rickshaw operator in India. But he is happy, because his home is sufficient, and when he gets home from work is greeted by his children. My favorite, because it relates to my own Cajun upbringing, is an extended Cajun family in Louisiana, not wealthy in material things, but enjoying a wealth of happiness from hard work, and sharing the day's seafood haul and enjoying the natural beauty of the waterways and the wildlife.There are two important, but opposing forces, at work in most humans. One is the need to achieve a certain degree of success, wealth, beauty, and recognition. But this requires competition which in itself does NOT bring true happiness. The other force is to give back to the Earth and society, to have friends, to take care of the less fortunate, to be kind to others, to do good deed, to take time to play and laugh and have fun for no reason than to simply be happy.It is this second type of force, which is cooperation rather than competition, that leads to better health, both mental and physical, and in general to longer lives. I can relate, I am retired from a career that required competition to get promotions and bigger pay increases. I was sufficiently successful at that to retire, debt-free, at 50.But in retirement I am much happier, and I believe it is because I now refuse to compete, at anything, I don't gamble, and I play sports only for fun. I often volunteer to help others, even if it is to pause 15 seconds and help a stranger with loading their car with heavy groceries. It just seems like the right thing to do. Or simply greet a stranger with "Good day" and a smile.The film makes the point, doing the things that make us happier may not take much effort at all, it is just being ourselves and reminding ourselves that being happy is simply an activity that needs to be practiced, just like anything we enjoy.Good film, I wish everyone could see it.

Tom Shadyac, the director of the Nutty Professor read in a NY times article that although the US was one of the richest countries it was nowhere near the happiest and also noted from his own experience materially successful people he knew were often less happy than their gardeners. Intrigued he funded director Roko Belic to make this movie investigating what makes people happy. He goes to Denmark, Namibia, Scotland, China, Kenya, Brazil, Japan, Bhutan and India and interviews a bunch of people and the result is quite an interesting movie on how things play out. They start with a guy in India living in poverty in one of the worse slums but he's about as happy as the average American partly because there is a lot of community involvement. In Japan he meets the Okinawa islanders who generally have a cheery simple life and live to about 100 and also the family of a pressured salary man who dropped dead in his thirties from stress and overwork. It's interesting to see the contrasts and it may well give some inspiration for your own life.