Happy Face Series Review: Paramount+ Series Tell Something Different Through Family Lineage
Inspired by a true story: the true story of Melissa G. Moore, Happy Face the Paramount+, series arriving on March 21, becomes Melissa Reed. That is the protagonist of Happy Face, a TV series that you should watch, with its 8 episodes that they paste on the screen. To tell us an exciting investigation but above all the true story of what it means to be the daughter of a (real) serial killer of the years ’90. What if your dad is a serial killer? He asked himself a few years ago on TV Prodigal Son and in that case the prodigal son of the title had become a profiler to help the police capture those like his father while facing psychological instability. In reverse in Happy Face, on Paramount+ with a weekly appointment, the protagonist Melissa is the make-up artist, happy to be behind the scenes of the Dr. Greg Show and make the stars of the program shine, that is, the familiar guests of the victims of heinous crimes who want to bring to light what has happened to their loved ones.
Inspired as often happens to a true story, in this case of Melissa G. Moore, which has become the eponymous podcast of iHeartPodcast and Moore and autobiography Shattered Silence, written in four hands with M. Bridget Cook, the serial tries to shed light once again between the lights and shadows of human psychology. In the full golden age of true crime, we are bombarded by every media by the wrongdoings of the most ferocious serial killers. It is therefore inevitable that seriality tries to draw fully from this inexhaustible vein, passing through the sieve the most particular or shocking events. This is certainly the case with Happy Face, a series available from March 21 on Paramount+ taken from a chilling true story, already the subject of the autobiography of Melissa G. Moore Shattered Silence, and a podcast. The protagonist of this story (interpreted in Happy Face from Annaleigh Ashford) hides a terrible truth, that is, the fact of being the daughter of Keith Hunter Jesperson, a serial killer nicknamed Happy Face for his habit of drawing smiley faces in letters sent to the media and authorities.
Happy Face Series Review: The Story Plot
Melissa Reed (Annaleigh Ashford, Masters of Sex) is happily married and has two children. She works as a makeup artist for the famous show of Dr. Greg, a psychotherapist who deals with trauma and crime on television. The transmission is very popular. When the serial killer Keith Hunter Jesperson (character real, played excellently by Dennis Quaid, The Day After Tomorrow) calls Dr. Greg (David Harewood, Homeland: Spy Hunt), he summons Melissa to his office, together with the program producer Ivy (Tamera Tomakili, Opus). The serial killer Happy Face, locked up in prison, is about to phone Greg and wants to talk to Melissa, so she is forced to reveal why: Keith Hunter Jesperson is his father… The Paramount+ series is not procedural in which the serial killer on duty is recruited in prison to become a police consultant because of his ‘talents’, such as the previous title mentioned. In this case, Melissa (a convincing one Annaleigh Ashford) is contacted by her father Keith (a surprising one Dennis Quaid), who is serving life imprisonment, after years of silence through the program where it works to reveal a truth so far hidden: a ninth victim never made public so far.
Are you telling the truth or are you making it all up? What you put on your feet is therefore a *horizontal survey that goes through all eight episodes and will lead to a shocking resolution. The woman is forced not only to dig into her memories and question her childhood and the difficult relationship with her parent but also to try to protect her family from him. Her husband Ben (James Wolk) is aware of this while the children, Hazel and Max, are unaware of it. Melissa finds herself forced not only to reopen a painful chapter of her life while she thought she had turned the page forever but also to get out of the shadow in which she had confined herself so as not to be in the spotlight after the experience lived. A race against time since a man is serving a sentence that is perhaps his father’s responsibility. The protagonist will have to do a physical and metaphorical journey in Texas together with the producer Ivy (Tamera Tomakili), determined but not ruthless, to open Pandora’s box while Ben will face the consequent imbalance that will be created at home. The serial also emphasizes the relationships between men and women given Keith’s carnal modus operandi which was signed with a smiley face.
Happy Face Series Review and Analysis
Happy Face proves to be a product that is not exactly different from others. It offers intriguing family drama mixed with true crime, well expressed through the complex relationships between the characters who will reach a surprising junction in the finale. There is a discussion about parents and children, raising the question of whether evil arises from a traumatic event, if we are shaped by the socio-cultural context in which we grow, or if we can liberate ourselves from our past and bloodline. Series like Dexter, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, and this one also do not portray these kinds of questions, perhaps even better and in more detail. Nevertheless, in the context of inheritance and succession, since the relationship between fathers and daughters mirrors that of mothers and sons, one contemplates the legacy of the Oedipus complex and its relevance to the evolution of our society.
The direction mainly uses close-ups, looks, and silences, while photography dark tones in contrast with red to express the inner dilemma of the protagonist towards her bloodline. To surprise, the performance is above all Dennis Quaid, increasingly experimental and open to diversified and courageous roles. The editing takes its time and does not become something syncopated and frenetic like other times in this type of story, allowing the public to assimilate the story, until the final unveiling. The phrase we repeat in each episode of the podcast Series Crimes is perfectly fitting in the case of Happy Face: the story told during the 8 episodes is the result of fantasy, but Melissa has truly lived for 15 years with a terrible serial killer without suspecting anything. When he was 15 years old, in reality as in the series, his father was arrested and later convicted of the murders of 8 women, although he claimed to have killed many more.
Dennis Quaid, which we have known almost exclusively in positive roles, evidently studied to prepare for the role, and his performance is impressed: the use of the voice (we previewed it in the original language), a simple change of tone to transform himself, the dichotomy of an affectionate father (apparently) and ruthless killer: everything works perfectly. Also, Annaleigh Ashford is very intense, an excellent protagonist who helps us to think – which we rarely do – also on the other side of the barricade: that of the family of culprits. Jennifer Cacicio (Your Honor, Shooter) creates and writes, the golden couple formed by Robert and Michelle King (The Good Wife, Evil), and Happy Face goes smoothly, one episode after another, while we worry about the fate of the other characters involved … Starting naturally from Melissa’s family. The husband Ben (James Wolk, Mad Men) is aware of Melissa’s secret, but he is the only one. Their children are growing up, Hazel (Khiyla Aynne, Poniesitters Club) and Max (Benjamin Mackey, The Morning Show) as best they can, protecting them from an incontestable truth. Because being related to a murderer inevitably causes him social stigma.
Happy Face analyzes all aspects of the real story experienced by Melissa. It is not enough to summarize with “injury” that is, that the children of a murderer must endure. There is much, much more. The fear of being like parents, the bullying that must undergo in every area of society, the ’fierce hatred (motivated, but understandable) of the families of the victims, the relapses in their (new) families, and a real one of a cascade of misfortunes which persecutes every new generation of certain families. Carrying the killer’s mark on him without any fault means always being watching with suspect, for everyone’s belief that it would be impossible not to notice something strange by living with a serial killer. But history teaches us that, even in the event of some strange signal, the ’love for parents brings children and young people to ignore any clues. Many real events support this hypothesis…
And not surprisingly, that of Happy Face and his daughter Melissa is one true story. Like the true stories that Dr. Greg, founded on the morbid curiosity of the public just like the programs we see every day on TV. In a little veiled metaphor of how the old man “slams the monster on the front page” has an enormous influence on the contemporary world and public opinion. In the era of social networks and influencers, in which the moral decline seems to be the real concern for the future – while it should be, just to name one, the environmental issue – Happy Face reminds us how much I hate there is in circulation. And how easy it is to orientate it with a simple appearance in the media… Each episode ends with a twist, with one narrative turn, with one discovery that shuffles the cards in play. The voltage is constant, accompanied by that sense of anguish that we soon share for Melissa’s misfortune and the pain she has had to endure all her life. In a story that ends with a clear premise for a second season, which we hope to see.
Not only true crime therefore, but also a reflection on the origin of evil, on heredity, and on our way of dealing with what we are (emblematic of the profession of the make-up artist chosen by Melissa, that is, the one who masks reality by hiding its ugliness). Happy Face tries to fly high, drawing vigor and intensity from an exceptional villain like the aforementioned Dennis Quaid, increasingly comfortable in roles like this. Despite the ambitions, however, the series disperses much of its potential, watered down in an excess of subplots and a consequent disproportionate lengthening of the minute. It’s a pity because when Happy Face remains attached to the emotional center of gravity of the story, it centers particularly exciting moments, entering territories already successfully explored by absolute cults such as Dexter.
In the dual role of creator and showrunner, Jennifer Cacicio however, he shuffles the cards, focusing on Melissa’s inner labor and imparting sudden turns and real twists to the series. A choice that compensates for different delays and empty bars, which risk removing the spectators from a story that instead deserves to be told. A story that precisely because it is based on truth pushes us to ask ourselves about the hatred that we face daily, capable of creating an infinite chain of anger and suspicion, where it becomes almost impossible to distinguish the victims from the executioners. Net of the concerns already expressed, the glass of Happy Face is therefore half full, as where writing and staging do not arrive, the questions that the series poses to us arrive, in a vortex of anguish and restlessness that leaves the door wide open on a more than probable second season.
Happy Face Series Review: The Last Words
Happy Face is a crime series that tries to tell something different through family lineage, through the investigation into the origin of Evil and human horror, through the convincing interpretations of the protagonists but at the same time does not bring anything new to the gender, while creating an interesting and symbolic circular path. The adult part works more than the adolescent one and the comparisons between Melissa and Keith are the most stimulating and engaging. The assembly slowed down in the face of good but canonical direction and photography. With one compelling plot and full of moral questions, Melissa leads us to discover what it means to wear it social stigma of the killer’s daughter. 8 episodes are breathless, between moral and continuous dilemma twists (a surprise at the end of each episode), with an excellent cast and a great care for the realization, they ferry us to a second season that we hope to see.
Stars: Annaleigh Ashford, James Wolk, Khiyla Aynne
Creator: Jennifer Cacicio
Streaming Platform: Paramount+
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars)
Happy Face Series Review: Paramount+ Series Tell Something Different Through Family Lineage | Filmyhype
Director: Jennifer Cacicio
Date Created: 2025-03-21 16:11
3.5
Pros
- Combine true crime and family drama story.
- The horizontal and non-episodic story.
- Annaleigh Ashford and Dennis Quaid.
- Slow and unaccelerated assembly.
- The questions the serial asks...
Cons
- Already made by others (and perhaps better).
- The teen storyline.
