Locarno 2025: Legend of the Happy Worker

Duwayne Dunham wraps a critique of capitalism in a hokey, Disney-like fable with mixed results

I’ll be publishing a bit of coverage of the Locarno Film Festival titles this month. The festival officially started on August 6, so until more titles screen here’s a write-up about Duwayne Dunham’s new film which premiered today.

There’s a bit of melancholy with the long-awaited arrival of Duwayne Dunham’s Legend of the Happy Worker. Adapted from S.E. Feinberg’s one act play The Happy Worker, the film’s origins begin in the 1980s when David Lynch supposedly tried to adapt it himself, going so far as to scout for locations. Lynch abandoned the project, giving the script and play to Dunham, who worked for Lynch as an editor on Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, and Wild at Heart, and Dunham spent three decades trying to get his own adaptation off the ground. In 2018, not long after Dunham reunited with Lynch to edit Twin Peaks: The Return, The Legend of the Happy Worker started filming. But with a seven year period between its production and premiere, the film finally emerges with Lynch’s absence, a posthumous Executive Producer credit, and one of the last times we’ll see his name attached to a new film.

Lynch’s recent passing will invite comparisons between Dunham’s film and Lynch’s work, or at the very least put one in a frame of mind to focus on the Lynchian parts of Legend of the Happy Worker. There are cameos from several actors in The Return, as well as a golden shovel featured prominently that could have very well been taken from the set of Lynch’s show. But Dunham operates differently than Lynch, with his work as a director largely made up of children’s movies in the 1990s and 2000s like Homeward Bound, Little Giants, and Disney Channel classics including Halloweentown. Dunham’s films have the heartfelt qualities seen in Lynch’s portrayals of Americana (even Lynch did his own Disney movie with The Straight Story) but he keeps his work broadly appealing and for younger audiences.

Dunham’s approach hasn’t really changed with Legend of the Happy Worker. He takes Feinberg’s story, a “fable for our time” that lays out the exploitation of workers under American capitalism, and films it in the same mode as a Disney film from the 1990s. It’s broad, absurd, and often resembles a live action cartoon. The exaggerated performances make the film exist on a wavelength where a musical number could break out at a moment’s notice. Everyone speaks with a wide-eyed, “aw shucks” attitude, emphasizing things with “damn” or “darn” in every other sentence. The orchestral score by Jan A.P. Kaczmarek and Phil Marshall conjures up memories of James Horner’s soundtrack for Fievel Goes West. To see this style applied to a story about the perils of capitalism’s dehumanizing nature is, to put it bluntly, weird.

The film’s central character is Joe (Josh Whitehouse), a father and husband who loves going to work every day to dig a hole in the desert under the benevolent watch of the hole’s owner Goose (Thomas Haden Church). This idyllic existence gets disrupted when an old worker named Pete (J.R. Starr) demands Joe meet with Goose to ask one question: “Why?” The question scares Joe, and once he finally builds up the nerve to ask it even throws Goose off. Goose ends up rewarding Joe for asking, giving him a promotion that includes moving to a fancier part of town called Easy Street. The film never explains the purpose of the hole, why it’s being dug, or if it produces anything of material value. It’s just work, and everyone is happy to do their part.

Goose’s tactics reflect a more antiquated (but far from extinct) way of doing business, one whose prosperity depended on keeping its workers in the dark as much as possible. Joe and his co-workers are, for the most part, perfectly happy digging and getting paid, simply because it’s all they know. And when Joe’s single question exposes the fragile nature of the relationship between Goose and his workers, he’s placated with rewards to distract him.

The arrival of Joe’s uncle Clete (Colm Meaney), a well travelled businessman who rides into town on a loud car spitting out black smoke, represents the evolution of business that came with industrialization. Clete wants the hole for himself, and intends to bring in tractors he calls “earth mongers” to ramp up digging so he can maximize profits. Clete understands the power of knowledge, calling Goose out on keeping people ignorant and scared to maintain his success, but Clete has no limits when it comes to attaining money and power. He tells Goose it’s wrong to quash a man’s curiosity when he uses their curiosity to keep them under his thumb.

Given that, tonally, this is in line with Dunham’s previous films, the hokey nature of this one makes it hard to grasp just how self-aware it might be. The glossy, digital sheen of the visuals and cheap-looking green screen, combined with some awkward edits and blatant overdubs, give off a shoddiness that might explain the lengthy post-production period. And the film’s obvious, corny execution, from its slapstick gags to its overbearing sentimentality, inspires the kind of kneejerk, cringe reaction one might get if they ever come upon a Disney Channel Original. But there’s a dissonance between style and subject matter that makes Dunham’s film difficult to dismiss as a fiasco. Seeing such an overt criticism of capitalism expressed in the same form as the kind of dreck a business titan like Disney tosses out in the hopes of making a quick buck is too intentional to ignore. It’s a repurposing that makes Legend of the Happy Worker a fascinating misfire, one whose commitment demands a begrudging respect.