The old man I used to live with used to have a saying that could be interpreted as a joke.  I am also not sure if it was original to him, or if he heard it from another source.  Anyway, it goes: “Nostalgia just isn’t what it used to be.”  Even if you have not seen Happy Gilmore 2 or its predecessor, I hope the sequel designation will tell you why this is appropriate and funny.  Faith will caution you against the mental exercise that is excessively ruminating upon the past.  For us, God is accessible in the present.  We cannot have Him change the past for us, and even if that were possible, would we know it happened?  One could fall into a hypothetical wormhole of thought pondering that question.  The point is to remain in the here and now.  For actors and actresses, successes in their careers tend to almost demand this kind of attention, for better or worse.  This is my theory on how Adam Sandler came to make this movie.  I typically do not give him credit for much, and I found this one to be as dull as most of the rest of his work, but there is a little something more than scatological humor in this anticipated update.

If you remember its predecessor (which is hazy to me), Happy Gilmore 2 picks up at the end of the last one with the title character (Adam Sandler) anticipating a long and storied career as a professional golfer.  That indeed takes place while he also begins having children with Virginia (Julie Bowen), the woman he met in the last film.  He tries to teach his four sons to play golf like he did, but they instead inherit his original passion for hockey.  This means they act like hooligans for the rest of the proceedings, and though well intentioned (for the most part), can be safely written off with the rest of the numerous cameos as cinematic wallpaper.  The offspring who is not a lunatic is his only daughter, Vienna (Sunny Sandler), who wants to be a ballerina.  Before the couple can see their children become whatever it is they will become, Happy hits a tee shot with his trademark velocity that bends into the gallery and sadly strikes Virginia, killing her.  He vows from then on to never again play golf.  Along with losing his job and source of income, he loses his grandmother’s beloved house, which was the MacGuffin in the previous film.  Further, not only is he a single dad taking whatever menial jobs he can to survive, but he is also told by Vienna’s ballet instructor, Monica (Jackie Sandler), that his youngest has been accepted to an expensive dance school in Paris.  Because Vienna is special to Happy, he wants to do everything he can to realize her dreams.  There are problems in his life, however, beyond not playing the sport that brought him riches, that could prevent this from happening.  Namely, it is blatant alcoholism.  He has a variety of places where he conceals liquor, including in a fake cucumber in the grocery store that is his current place of employment.  It is while he is there that he is approached by Frank Manatee (Benny Safdie).  Frank is the creator of a wildly popular energy drink, and he is now wanting to translate that success into a new golf league named after his company, calling it Maxi Golf.  Despite not playing the sport for a decade, Happy’s reputation is such that Frank wants a golfer like the unconventional happy to be on Frank’s circuit.  Happy turns him down, which Frank does not take well.  Yet, the idea of taking up the clubs again cannot be shaken.  He is encouraged to do so during a dream he has of his dead wife, and it is reinforced by John Daly (as himself).  This John is not a professional golfer, but basically an alcoholic hermit that lives in Happy’s garage.  Needing to judge his current skill level, Happy goes to the local course to get in a practice round.  It goes disastrously, and not solely because he is rusty.  It quite literally flames out while he is passed out drunk attempting to drive the cart, and he jumps the vehicle unto another.  While no one dies, he is forced to go to a special Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting run by Hal L. (Ben Stiller).  He was the person in charge of the nursing home in which Happy’s grandmother briefly stayed during the last movie.  This sounds normal except for the fact that he was abusive, which is supposed to be funny.  Here, he treats the people in his group as slaves, forcing them to do labor for him whenever they err.  There is some good that comes out of this as it forces him to recommit to his skills instead of boozing.  As such, he is invited back to a banquet with current and former professional golfers.  During the occasion, they are told about the challenge issues by Maxi Golf.  They want five of the establishment’s best golfers to play in one of their style tournaments for primacy in the golfing world.  To do so, the tour professionals hold a tournament to determine who will represent them, with Happy playing.  He is in contention until the final day, which takes place on Mother’s Day.  Unable to keep his nerves down, he resorts to drinking.  Not only does he fall to sixth place, his televised tipsy behavior is a parole violation.  On the run, he goes to Virginia’s grave where he unexpectedly encounters Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald), his rival from all those years ago.  A fistfight commences, fueled by Shooter blaming Happy for the former’s mental breakdown and spending the intervening years in psychiatric care.  Thankfully, they soon mend their differences and Shooter gives some inside information on Frank’s plans since the former professional had been sprung from the institution by Maxi Golf’s owner.  This proves crucial as Frank had wanted Shooter to be a part of Maxi Golf.  Shooter refused, and Frank instead turns to Billy Jenkins (Haley Joel Osment), a previously unknown golfer who had beaten Happy in the aforementioned tournament with Maxi’s help.  Still, Billy’s departure means a place for Happy among the five taking on Maxi.  Of course, it comes down to a tie with Billy, and the final shot on the deciding hole.  Frank makes a bet on the seemingly impossible shot, being on a spinning green, which Happy counters with Frank having to pay for Vienna’s schooling and some other concessions for his friends.

There are a few more scenes after Happy’s victory in Happy Gilmore 2, like Hal being arrested for being an abuser.  It is a mark of what is a slightly more mature tone for the sequel, even if there are plenty of moments when Happy is encouraging his sons’ incessant mooning of everyone.  I say this because all the signs are there for the title character to realize the things that I discussed in the introduction.  Unfortunately, these realizations do not come through Faith, but God rejoices in His children doing what is right.  There is also the irony of the film being what it is, a nostalgia piece.  The key moment comes when Happy concludes that he is “not that man anymore,” meaning who is different from the maniac who chug beers on the course and fight Bob Barker (stock footage).  He does have a sort of heavenly muse in the form of Virginia.  This is not unheard of in Catholic history.  Mostly those happens in the form of intercessory prayer that we ask of them, which is obviously different than apparitions or dreams as in the film.  Still, there are stories of saints asking to be able to remain in some form on Earth after their passing in order to continue to do good.  This was the case for St. Thérèse of Lisieux.  There are reports of this actually happening with St. Padre Pio.  Though I did not personally see this happen, I heard stories of people crossing the border between Mexico and the United States being led by this Italian capuchin friar who died in 1968.  I learned of these accounts while working on my Ph.D. at Loyola University Chicago, some four decades after the saint’s passing.  Finally, to my knowledge, he had never set foot in either Mexico or the United States.  Nonetheless, upon getting to the suburban Chicago parish at which I was doing research, there were those who saw St. Padre Pio’s image and claimed that he had brought them through dangerous lands.  The point of all this, whether you or the movie want to see it in this manner, God puts people in our lives that can help us in the moment of our greatest need.

What is not needed is watching Happy Gilmore 2.  This is not to say it is a bad film.  The trouble I had was in distinguishing it in any meaningful way to its predecessor.  I know I claimed that it was slightly more mature, but the majority of the jokes were in the same spirit as the last one.  Hence, if you have seen one, you have seen them all.