Karina on SpoutBlog

“Ten years have passed since Happiness, but I prefer not to be beholden to the literalness of time or circumstance. I like to tweak things, get at stuff from a fresh angle, and so, for example, some characters have aged five years, some twenty years, some histories have been altered, and I have allowed race not to be something set in stone. Of course, it’s a completely different cast. It’s more fun and interesting that way.”

So says Todd Solondz, in reference to his highly-anticipated sort-of sequel to Happiness. Formerly titled Life During Wartime, The Playlist passes along word that the film is now being called Forgiveness, and that Fortissimo Films has acquired worldwide sales rights. Fortissimo were initially on board to fund the film, back when it was first announced in 2006 at Cannes.

In November, we learned a few casting details, including that  The Wire’s Michael Kenneth Williams would be playing the part originally played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Paul Reubens would be taking over for Jon Lovitz. The film’s IMDb profile has been expanded a bit, and it looks like Ally Sheedy is taking Lara Flynn Boyle’s Happiness Part, and Allison Janney is taking over the role of “Trish” for Cynthia Stevenson.

The Playlist discovered a long synopsis for the film with character names matched up to actor names, and he presumes that Hilton’s role must be “small if they mention eleven actors and not even a peep of her.” But I had another thought: what if the producers are just carefully guarding the film’s biggest casting joke?

The only actor on the Forgiveness IMDb page who isn’t associated with a  character yet is Paris Hilton, which leads me to the following, probably completely crazy conjecture: the original rumors on this film suggested that it was to include characters from both Happiness AND Welcome to the Dollhouse. Is it possible that Hilton is playing Dawn Weiner?

Now this is COMPLETELY SPECULATIVE. But … it seems within the realm of possibility that Solondz, clearly on a mission to stretch his exploration of identity even further than he went with Palindromes, would find something inspiring about the idea of the pre-teen reject once played by Heather Matarazzo growing up to be Paris Hilton. It also seems possible that he’d take some pleasure in going the other way, in de-Parising Paris. Either option would likely play on Hilton’s presumed cultural naivete — it would be impossible to watch her playing Dawn Weiner, regardless of how she played it, without wondering if she understood the original depiction of the character.

I know, I’m probably wrong. It’s just a thought.