Christian Science Monitor by Peter Rainer

Kittelsen is a funny, expansive actress, and director Anne Sewitsky manages the sad-comic tonal shifts with emotional accuracy.

Total Film by Josh Winning

The ensuing drama is typically Scandinavian in the best way possible – the setting's beautiful, the tensions slow-burning. Meanwhile, musical interludes courtesy of a barbershop quartet lend a playful undertone.

The A.V. Club by Noel Murray

The characters remain governed by what they've been told about themselves for years - that they're ugly, devious, mean, low-class, or silly - until a fresh set of eyes changes what they see in the mirror. Knowing this mutual moment of stark self-awareness is coming doesn't make its arrival any less powerful.

San Francisco Chronicle by Walter Addiego

The curdled Norwegian comedy-drama Happy, Happy, which dissects a pair of poisoned marriages, is sometimes heavy-handed (like its title) but has much to recommend it.

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

Winner of Sundance's grand jury prize for world cinema, Happy, Happy is a very strange film. Yet I was happy to be watching. It is short and intense enough that it always seems on track, even if the train goes nowhere.

The Hollywood Reporter

If it weren't so good-natured overall, Anne Sewitsky's feature debut Happy, Happy might seem entirely implausible, even for a comedy.

Los Angeles Times by Betsy Sharkey

At times, Happy, Happy is cutting comedy at its brutal best; at times, it slips on the black ice. Still, the love of life is exuberant, the pain exquisite.

Village Voice

The questionable black-historical shorthand detracts from what is otherwise a well-performed and fitfully amusing film.

Variety by Dennis Harvey

Picture ultimately pulls off a fairly ambitious narrative agenda with a wrap both credible and crowdpleasing.

Village Voice by Benjamin Mercer

The questionable black-historical shorthand detracts from what is otherwise a well-performed and fitfully amusing film.

The Hollywood Reporter by Justin Lowe

If it weren't so good-natured overall, Anne Sewitsky's feature debut Happy, Happy might seem entirely implausible, even for a comedy.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Joe Williams

Happy, Happy has the makings of a Norwegian "Ice Storm," but it goes out with a whimper.

Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern

In her casually daring - and mostly endearing - debut feature, the Norwegian director Anne Sewitsky mixes and purposely mismatches light and dark moods to tell the story of a rural wife and mother looking for happiness in the wrong places, and finally in the right one.

The New York Times by Stephen Holden

Sets out to puncture the clichéd image of Scandinavians as rosy-cheeked choristers bonded in communal togetherness. But its subversive intentions are ultimately undercut by its lack of nerve, along with a lurking sentimentality.

Slant Magazine by Ed Gonzalez

The filmmaker looks to American modes of visual and aural expression to give Happy, Happy its soul, but all her fetish accomplishes is depersonalizing her story, making a sitcom of her character's lives.

Time Out by David Fear

Throw in some quirky interludes of a Norwegian quartet singing old American spirituals every so often, and you've got something that's truly messy, messy.