Happy

What is happiness and where does it come from. This documentary asks the question in fourteen countries: a rickshaw puller in Kolkata, a woman in Louisiana whose face was badly burned, a co-housing community in Denmark, the families of people in Japan who died from overwork, and a state in Bhutan that measures national happiness as official policy. Roko Belic runs the narrative on two tracks: these stories and research in positive psychology. Researchers including Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Richard Davidson and Ed Diener present their findings. The claim at the centre is that beyond a certain threshold income does not increase happiness; what determines it is relationships, community, and the state of flow. The narrative selects its examples in a way that supports its claim and gives no room to contrary findings. Who it's for: Viewers who like popular science documentary, narratives about psychology, and cross-cultural comparison. Who it's not for: The scientific claims are simplified and the examples are arranged to confirm the thesis. Some sections also romanticise poverty.