We all know that the American Dream involves "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness". However, the main question plaguing most minds in America is: how does one achieve true happiness? Is it finding a well paying job? A loving spouse and a family? Or is it something more... internal? One of the things "Thirteen Conversations About One Thing" teaches us is: quit asking; it can only make things worse.
Through thirteen vignettes, writer/director Jill Sprecher (and co-written with her sister Karen) tell several stories, all led by the same fundamental questions. The first of the stories is of Gene (Alan Arkin), whose son is doing his best not to communicate with him and is constantly on the run from the law. To make matters worse, his boss is about to demote him, even though Gene thinks he's getting a promotion. The second is about Beatrice (Clea DuVall), a good-natured maid who gets hit by a car while returning a shirt to a client she has a crush on.
That car was being driven by Troy (Matthew McConaughey), an attorney who had just been celebrating a successful case. He runs away from the scene of the accident, thinking he had killed Beatrice. He feels responsible for punishing himself by re-opening a cut he received during the incident every time it begins to heal. The final story is of Walker (John Turturro), a college professor going through a transitional stage in his life. He is having an affair on his wife (Amy Irving), and is not sure where he wants his extramarital relationship to go, all he knows is that he hopes it ends in happiness.
Before I go on about what "Thirteen Conversations" has to say to us, let me remark on the sensational ensemble cast. Jill Sprecher has created the film in such a way that each character has something new to bring to the film, so it is essential that a cast is found that can do the same. Needless to say, the cast of "Thirteen Conversations" pulls off some brilliantly understated, quietly powerful performances that give the film most of its sense of wholeness.
"Thirteen Conversations About One Thing" may not tell you how to live a happy life, but Jill Sprecher is practically a philosopher when it comes to this subject, demonstrating her views on the subject through the events described above. First and foremost, "Thirteen Conversations" tells us that happiness is what you make it. Many of the characters in the film are in a bad spot indeed, but are making it much worse for themselves and others by accentuating the negative.
One thing that is important to remember about "Thirteen Conversations" is that, even though so many disturbing events occur, and even though it may dabble in long-winded theorizing, at its core it is wonderfully simple, and above all, optimistic. There is hope for all of the characters, even the ones who don't even realize it themselves. As for its definition of happiness, I took away that happiness is a much more basic, much easier feeling to possess than almost any of the characters are letting themselves think.
There is only one character who truly understands the message I interpreted from "Thirteen Conversations About One Thing". Even when bad things may happen to him, he is still able to live in relative happiness. It is him who practically saves one of the character's lives when in one crucial event (that apparently really happened in Sprecher's life), he simply smiles. From this comes the film's most important philosophy: it's all about how one looks at life.
