42 Short Films on 42 Seconds of Happiness

- Season 1

(2012)

Featuring the ensemble of the Writers Improv Studio, 42 Seconds of Happiness is a web series made from improvisations which examine with tender honesty the intimate and fragile components of love and friendship relationships.

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The Dinner continues. Will Tomas and Alis find back together? What does their breakup mean to their friends?

Why stay in a marriage? Are fighting parents better than no parents? Tomas wants to fight, but an unexpected guest throws him off balance.

Meet Ben. Physics student. Iraq veteran. American citizen. Born in India.

"There is no you or me, and we are one". Meet Felice and Ike, a few months before the dinner. Can they have it all? And if yes, which one of them can have it all? Or is it the wrong question?

"If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story," said Orson Welles. Meet Vineke and Peter, a few months before the dinner. Vineke is Peter's second wife -- he left his first one because of Vineke, and deep inside she fears he will do it again. Can one love from a position of fear?

"You won't be happy, until you fucking work on yourself!" Ike and Tomas try to persuade Peter to give up on Daphne. A stranger barges in. Meet Marc. Time/Space: A few months before the dinner. In a bar, somewhere in NYC.

"I've been sleeping with another woman". Marc is married, and he is happily in love with a married woman. As far as he's concerned this is the best deal one can have. Till Sila finds out.

"So if you could choose to live outside of yourself, what would it be like?" asks Marc, and Alis falls in love.

"I don't want to be sad. I don't want to cry. I don't want to feel like my life is over." - Alis. Sometimes a decision is made before it is made. Sometimes we know, but it takes time - and a shock - to make us listen to what we know. A month before The Dinner. The inevitable is written in every scene. Life is scripted, then improvised. 'The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.'

From "we are totally happy" to "I don't know how happy I am" it takes less than three minutes. Seeing Felice so happily pregnant, makes Alis realize that she does not love Tomas as she said she does. She would never want to have another child with him - a shocking realization.

"It just felt right, even if it was wrong." So Marc and Alis meet again. And again. So what is this? Fun? An escape from things that are no longer fun? How are you dealing with this? Why does your wife keep calling? Questions and lies and qualms start taking over.

The cast of 42 Seconds of Happiness explores the line between acting and being, in a series of thoughtful and entertaining confessions taken after the events at The Dinner.

"This was not the plan. This was not how I thought this was all gonna go. I fucking put myself out there and fell in love and... I'm not enough.' Tomas tells his sister, Maria, that his marriage is over. 'Sam will be fine,' he adds, only for her to blurt out: 'Were we fine?'

'We keep saying that it's about Sam,' says Tomas - but it is not. A decision to separate, especially when kids are involved, is just the beginning. And what lies ahead is perhaps one of the biggest challenges life has to offer. It is Confessions time again, and we are focusing on Tomas and Alis after The Dinner. What do they want? And what do they think the other wants? Are they even on the same planet?

'You'd think that when love ends, that it could just end, and it wouldn't have to be so bitter and complicated.' Alis asks for Peter's help, Peter offers Tomas his help, Tomas wants everybody to get out of his life. A couple has common friends. One day they separate. What happens to their friends? Will they take sides, will they get involved, will they even stay in the picture? It's complicated. And sometimes bitter.

Imagine you are in love. She is married, you are married. Both unhappily, which is why this is happening. Then one of you decides to leave the marriage. And it is not you. Alis tells Marc that she is getting a divorce. Watch what happens. And if that is not too much to imagine: you are in a car. Meeting the love of your life. Or that is what you thought. Two hours ago.

Are we afraid of happiness? 'With that kind of happiness comes great risk,' says Alis, and Marc, in a moment of perfect clarity, asserts that 'ultimately I think I'll be unhappy by my own choice'. Watch Marc's and Alis' confessions after Alis has told him that she is separating from Tomas. What do they, what do we fear? Is it the unknown? Is it loneliness? Or is it, ultimately, our very own happiness?

'Let's try to see what's best for your child,' says the mediator, but Alis and Tomas disagree on what's best for Sam. How could they not? They have stopped calling each other sweetheart, and now they disagree on almost everything. How do parents end up in court, fighting a child custody battle? Watch it happening to Tomas and Alis, as hurt, anger and frustration are taking the lead.

Guilt, pride, competition, roles, habits, preconceptions... the list of obstacles to happiness is endless - is happiness even possible? In an unusual chapter, which combines a scene, the characters' confessions and a 'dialogue' after the characters have witnessed each other's confessions, Felice and Ike deal with sharing life together.

What happens when 'our home' becomes 'my home,' when 'our child' becomes 'my child,' when 'we' goes back to being 'you OR I'? Rarely the decision is mutual, and the one who did not make it, feels angry. 'You broke up our family, now live with the consequences,' argues Tomas. 'You can't have everything!'

After failing to reach an agreement, Tomas and Alis are interviewed by a court psychologist, who will decide who is the best parent.

'Why did you get married?' 'Because I was alone.' 'What happened?' 'I grew up.' After her scary interview by the court psychologist, Alis meets don't-you just-wish-for-a-delete-button-on-your-pa­st-Marc. Is she alone again? And what does it mean, being alone?

'I didn't lie, you know,' says Tomas after the interview by the court psychologist - and smiles. Does he believe the story he is telling? The story of Alis being an absent mother? Later: 'I still to this day can't even describe the betrayal.' Is that where his strong opinions come from? A character's short confession after a key moment.

'Then you have the money thing, and the lawyers start coming in and out...' In a set-up you would not experience as such in the real world, but which is part of the way we are working here, Tomas' and Alis' friends and family witness the couple's interviews by the court psychologist - and they are terrified. They feel like they have to choose sides, they fear that it's contagious. and it's making them re-think their own relationships. 'Maybe there is something that's not working with us,' says Vineke. Is there? To be continued.

The seeds of the future lie buried in the past. Flashback: 'Tomorrow will look like today,' said Tomas in the very first scene, which initiated our long-running storytelling experience, exactly a year ago. Alis has just received scary news from a blood test, and she is convinced that this is the end. The crisis puts their relationship to the test, and Tomas persuades her to go with him to therapy.

Vineke and Peter are having a party. So, whom should they invite: Tomas or Alis?

Alis returns home to an empty apartment. Someone walked in with a key and took everything. She seems to know who it was.

Ben is Alis' friend. He wants to protect her.

'I'm glad that me being embarrassing doesn't scare you away. I'm pretty embarrassing all the time. I'll probably embarrass you. Is that alright?' - 'I probably won't know how to handle it. Is that ok?' Maria meets Cybil, and her life changes forever. But what about Cybil's life? Who is Cybil, anyway?

Cybil gets to meet her future self - and ask her the one question she wants answered more than anything else: 'How do you resolve the feeling of impending doom?'

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Marc loses his temper and hits his kid. The slap unravels the skin-deep balance he is trying to re-create in his life with Sila.

After a strong dose of liquid courage, Marc and Sila end up sleeping together for the first time in a long time.

Peter has been missing for a few days, and his friends file a missing person report.

'You've come into this world and you have rocked it.' Vineke is desperately seeking Peter and while doing that she finds Marc in Alis' apartment. For her he is to blame for everything that happened since he came into their settled lives. But is that true?

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