Reviewed in brief: 'Happy, Happy' and 'Sarah Palin: You Betcha!"

HAPPY, HAPPY

This beguiling Norwegian trifle brings together two married couples, a Greek chorus of bluegrass singers, and a couple of kids for a comedy of clashing cultures. Eternal optimist Kaja (radiant Agnes Kittelsen) and her dour, repressed husband Eirik (Joachim Rafaelsen) are back-country folk with a towheaded little bulldozer of a boy. When their worldly new Danish neighbors Elisabeth (Maibritt Saerens) and Sigve (Henrik Rafaelsen) settle in on the adjoining property with their adopted Ethiopian son, it's only a matter of time until sociable board games give way to spouse-swapping and bed-hopping. The children, playing on their own, find a book about enslaved Africans and begin to play master and slave. Their queasy fantasy is a reflection of their parents' relationships. Both the rubes and the sophisticates are up to their ears in marital problems; each evolves through infidelity into self-discovery. The trysts and twists are handled with a Coenesque sense of ironic melancholy. Debut director Anne Sewitsky's hugely enjoyable film won the world cinema jury prize at Sundance earlier this year. --COLIN COVERT

THE DEAD

"The Dead" goes where few zombie movies have gone before: Africa. But beyond its auspicious premise -- survivors fighting a zombie outbreak against the continent's scorching vistas -- there's little else to chew on here. A U.S. Air Force mechanic's plane crashes off the coast of Western Africa. Soon he's traversing the zombie-plagued countryside with a local soldier who's looking for his son. Lucky for these two, "The Dead's" zombies are of the slow, lurching variety, not the sprinters seen in films like "28 Days Later." British filmmakers Howard J. Ford and Jon Ford like scares that creep up on you, but there are not enough of them. Still, they've worked wonders with the small budget: The location shooting in Ghana and Burkina Faso is beautiful, and the special effects are gory fun. The best zombie movies include a pinch of social commentary, but "The Dead" doesn't go that route. The movie's war-torn African setting suggests a built-in socio-political subtext. But the film stays fairly straightforward, which makes the sight of a white guy shooting down African villagers a little odd, even if they are zombies. --TOM HORGEN

SARAH PALIN: YOU BETCHA!

Nick Broomfield is a genial British pop-cultural muckraker whose previous films include "Kurt and Courtney" and "Biggie and Tupac." He makes much of his efforts to track down Sarah Palin at a book signing in Texas and in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, where he has some friendly encounters with her parents, and spends a lot of time with Palin's local critics."Sarah Palin: You Betcha!" might serve as a reminder for citizens who have forgotten about the Alaska trooper inquiry, or her fumbling interviews with Katie Couric and Charles Gibson. But it offers little in the way of novel insights into Wasilla, Palin or American politics. Broomfield's film does not uncover new information or even report fresh rumors. It feels warmed over, devoid of urgency and, in spite of Broomfield's on-camera displays of doggedness, lacking in curiosity. --A.O. SCOTT, NEW YORK TIMES

THE CITY DARK

MY AFTERNOONS WITH MARGUERITTE

It takes special skill to make a film feel as soft and light as a summer breeze, and yet that is what French director Jean Becker does with "My Afternoons With Margueritte." This gem is about the nature of chance encounters and how they can change us in unexpected ways. On a park bench in a French village, a bird-thin woman named Margueritte (Gisèle Casadesus) meets a giant lump of a workingman, Germain (Gerard Depardieu). The erudite Margueritte is portrayed with simple grace by Casadesus, who was 95 when the film was shot. Depardieu is the coarse and little-educated Germain, who must hint at a stirring intellect inside that lumbering bulk. Solace comes from sharing ideas and emotions. Margueritte's life unravels just as Germain's is coming together, with a few surprises along the way. --BETSY SHARKEY, LOS ANGELES TIMES