The Insider's Guide to Happiness

Reviewed by FRANCES GRANT

How's this for life giving you a bit of a serve? The telly drama based on your student work is about to go to air and the one thing that was broken on your move from Wellington to Auckland was — your television.

"I've got to get on to getting it fixed extremely quick, I've got a week and a half," says Peter Cox, the originator of and co-writer of TV2's new local drama The Insider's Guide to Happiness.

Accidents happen: from seemingly small and random incidents profound changes can come about. Or life can change dramatically, all of a sudden, paying no heed to the most carefully laid-out plans for the pursuit of happiness.

These are the themes of The Insider's Guide, their motif a monarch butterfly which flutters around in shot — a literal representation of chaos theory's "butterfly effect", the idea that extremely small events can have far-reaching consequences.

The 13-part drama follows a group of disparate characters living in Wellington whose paths cross and whose lives — or deaths — are gradually revealed to be connected.

"All the characters get challenged on what's most important to them and then have to deal with who they really are," says Cox.

Lawyer Matthew, a young Samoan man from a religious family, is the central character, the narrator who articulates the drama's themes and philosophical questions. As such he's the character Cox most closely identifies with, although the contradiction is not lost on the writer: "I'm like this little white guy which is kind of amusing. I'm, like, the least Samoan person you could meet."

Then there's the formidably self-controlled Julie who's in for the shock — make that two — of her life in the first episode. Her sister Tina meanwhile is trying to come to grips with reality, chiefly in the form of two-timing boyfriend Sam.

Other storylines follow free-wheeling hairdresser Tess; William, a doctor struggling with the emotional demands of his profession; cruisy bank officer James and television presenter Lindy, sacked for having an affair with her newsreader colleague.

Cox, 28, came up with the basic storylines and characters two years ago as a thesis project for a master's degree in scriptwriting at Wellington's Victoria University. Much to his surprise, the idea was picked up by
production house the Gibson Group, and he found himself on a team of four writing the series.

Cox credits TVNZ's willingness to give a fresh drama a go with its charter obligations. And The Insider's Guide to Happiness takes a few risks, he says. "I don't think anybody wants to watch anything that's too safe, because it's boring, seen it before."

The drama plays around with chronological order, some of the action is quite surreal and "it doesn't look like your average TV programme, it's much more cinematic. A lot of people have said the characters are quite quirky or unusual but they seem quite normal to me".

The characters are based on "little ideas that I've had, they come from all different directions or 'what if' scenarios," he says.

Auckland actress Sophia Hawthorne, who plays Julie, says the drama is about "the pursuit of happiness and how that's different for different people, but it's everybody's journey towards that, whether they know it or not."

What makes this different from those other twentysomething "reality bites" dramas is its complexity in characters and events. Details are important, she says, pleased that TV2 is screening the first episodes twice.

The repressed Julie, who suffers one of fate's seemingly random blows in the opening scenes, is a first major television role for Hawthorne, 27, and a departure from the "out there" characters she has played on stage or in film. "I hadn't played a character similar to her before. She's quite emotionally detached and she's quite controlling in a
circumstance where she can't control things, so that was a real challenge."

Cox says the drama was influenced by Aussie drama The Secret Life of Us, there's a touch of Six Feet Under in there but The Insider's Guide follows its own path, too.

"One of the things that started me off was this idea of who you really are, when you take away all of the trappings that you think make you, you: the relationship or job that you have or things that you own or clothes that you wear. If all that's stripped away from a person, then what's left, what really matters?"

The most interesting drama, says Cox, is about something more than just relationships between characters, the "who's sleeping with who". He deliberately set out to explore a theme, framed, quirkily, as one of those ubiquitous manuals of self-help as if, as so many would like to believe, happiness is something which can bought off the shelf.

"I think the important thing to be able to live properly is to not become too attached to things in the past or plan too much for the future but to live in the present, to live in moments," says Cox.

"It's easy to bog yourself down, [thinking] I'm this kind of person, I'm that kind of person instead of just being free to live your life in the way you want to — or not necessarily the way that you want to, but just the way it actually is. To observe what your life is and not create myths or lies for yourself about what you're doing or who you are. Because I think in the end that really creates unhappiness for people."

Cox certainly isn't into creating false myths, emphasising that The Insider's Guide to Happiness, although based on his idea and characters, has been very much a team effort with co-writers novelists Paula Boock and Damien Wilkins, and experienced scriptwriter David Brechin-Smith.

Happiness, though, is the luck and talent to get a fresh drama on TV at the start of your writing career. Happiness, too, is getting the telly fixed so Cox, who has only seen the first episode so far, can settle down and enjoy watching the fruits of his endeavours come to life on screen.

* Starts tonight, 9.30pm, TV2