Happy Endings is a 2005 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Don Roos and starring Tom Arnold, Jesse Bradford, Bobby Cannavale, Steve Coogan, Laura Dern, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Lisa Kudrow and Jason Ritter.

The film follows a diverse group of mostly middle-class residents of Los Angeles through emotional ups and downs in their lives, loosely connected to each other through a restaurant.

In the first story, Mamie reluctantly agrees to work with a would-be young filmmaker in order to locate the now-grown son she secretly gave up for adoption after becoming pregnant from her stepbrother Charley – who is later revealed to be gay – 19 years earlier.

And in the third, a young man, Otis, is involved with a band and trying to keep his father, Frank, from learning that he is gay, while also dealing with a seemingly gold-digging woman, Jude, who inserts herself into their lives.

[5] Before Maggie Gyllenhaal was cast as the character of Jude, Gwyneth Paltrow, who had previously worked with Roos on the film Bounce, was originally slated to play the part.

"[12] Dargis added, "Ensembles this large tend to be unwieldy or overly schematic, often both, but Mr. Roos is enough of a craftsman (and a mainstream filmmaker) that he never lets the seams show.

"[12] Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post said "What's so splendid about 'Happy Endings' is the very fact that it fits into no genre whatsoever and at no time while watching it can you say, oh, probably this is going to happen.