[3] Life During Wartime premiered at the 2009 Venice Film Festival, where it won the Golden Osella award for Best Screenplay.

Joy has married Helen's former neighbor, Allen Mellencamp, who continues to struggle with his compulsion to make obscene phone calls.

Trish's ex-husband, Bill, has been released from prison after serving a sentence for child molestation, and heads to Florida to find out how his family, particularly his eldest son, are doing.

He finds brief solace in a one-night stand with Jacqueline, a self-described "monster", as filled with loneliness and self-hatred as he is; however, she kicks him out the next morning when she catches him taking money from her purse.

Trish's middle child, Timmy, is preparing for his bar mitzvah and trying to determine what it means to become a man.

She briefly goes to California to visit Helen, who has become a successful screenwriter, and calls her husband to leave a message that she is coming home.

[5] The website's critics consensus reads: "With Life During Wartime, Todd Solondz delivers an unexpected semi-sequel to Happiness in typically uncompromising fashion."

On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 69 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".