The Conquest of Happiness Ask yourself if you’re really happy and you might be surprised at what you find. Ask several people at various points in their lives and you will get a different answer. This is the premise behind the film “13 Conversations about One Thing”, a touching, poignant and in some moments, deeply philosophical film, directed by Jill Sprecher. The film interweaves five contemporary stories into a single narrative. It deals with the profound, often unintentional impact that people have on one another, while searching for a more meaningful and happier existence. As the characters lives collide, mesh, and bounce off one another we see how their lives are linked in moments of highs and lows. The movie finds connections
Beatrice is a sincere believer in a higher power that watches over us and guides us along the path it most wants us to take. Beatrice is run over and left for dead on the street, yet this doesn’t break her spirit. She still has a sunny out - look on life until a client accuses her of stealing. In this moment, she loses her belief in life, and instead sees life as a chaotic jumble of chance circumstances, devoid of meaning and purpose. Her optimism and faith in human nature is completely torn apart by one person. It leads us to question, is life fair? Did Beatrice deserve to suffer as the result of someone else’s actions? Should we let others define our happiness?
The film“13 Conversations about One Thing” is character driven and captures the ebb and flow of everyday life. It focuses on the nature of fate and shows the effects of happiness. Fate, timing and chance plays such a crucial role in our lives, in ways both known and unknown. Do we know when it will be our time to be happy? Do we let these chances pass us by? Happiness is the subject of every conversation we ever have; the search for happiness, the loss of happiness and the definition of happiness. It leaves us with many unanswered questions; what is happiness, is it Gods will? How much do we contribute to our own happiness? How much do we let our happiness depend on the acts of others? Is life just a random mess or is there something