The Insiders Guide to Happiness - Does Happiness Grow Up? (Chapter Eleven)

A Perspective

By Rachel Davies 15/08/2017

The Insiders Guide to Happiness follows the interweaving lives of eight fascinating characters: including Matthew, a guilt-ridden ghost (Fasitua Amosa) who has been run over after cheating on his fiancée, a woman who wins millions in a lottery but still can't get her boyfriend to love her, a pregnant widow, a self-serving news presenter and a bogan seemingly possessed by the spirit of a Buddhist monk.

Each is forced to face themselves after experiencing a great loss. In picking up the pieces of their lives, they embark on the search for that most mysterious and elusive thing: happiness.

The apparently disparate stories are linked together by Matthew's omniscient voice-over, and a whimsical narrative that references everything from chaos theory (butterflies appear in the series as a motif) to the self-help manual Matthew unearths in a library, just hours before his death (each episode is framed around a pop-philosophical question, like 'Who Controls Your Happiness?').

This series showcased an ensemble of then emerging acting talent, including Amosa, Will Hall, Sophia Hawthorne, Paolo Rotondo, Will Hall, Jason Whyte, Madeleine Sami and Fraser Brown. Created by Peter Cox (a recently graduated creative writing student), and bought and developed by Wellington company The Gibson Group, the series works brilliantly because of its freshness of voice, originality and general coolness. 

Insiders Guide was compared to Australian TV series The Secret Life of Us, another show that successfully engaged with contemporary 20-something culture. But The Insider's Guide to Happiness is a thing all of its own: sophisticated, assured (the mystical elements are finely handled) and never derivative.

This is perhaps one of the reasons, along with effervescent performances, grungy Wellington settings stylishly photographed, and great New Zealand music, that the series found such popularity with audiences — particularly a young audience grateful to see themselves authentically portrayed on our TV screens. The production even used real butterflies — no CGI here, folks!

The Insiders Guide To Happiness sold to Australia, Finland and the United States. At the 2005 NZ Screen Awards, Happiness took away seven gongs — Best Drama Series, Director (Mark Beesley), Script (David Brechin-Smith) and Music (David Long), plus awards for actors Will Hall, Jason Whyte and Denise O'Connell.

- Rachel Davies' work as a director includes award-winning short film Sweetness, arts show The Gravy and the music video for Goldenhorse hit 'Maybe Tomorrow'. She also wrote immersive smartphone play The Woman Who Forgot. 

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