Paul Elliott’s review published on Letterboxd:
Little Stabs at Happiness seems to be both a momentary pause for breath as well as a look back on a life condensed into fifteen-minutes. The pieces the experimental and avant-garde pioneer Ken Jacobs shot over four years, unfolding in as many parts, is a vignette film that is a notable addition to noncommercial American filmmaking which erupted from the late nineteen fifties to the middle of the nineteen sixties. The scenes range from moments of children sketching in chalk on the pavement to junctures emphasised with a self-referential voice-over as he displays footage of people whose association with him has come to an end. The avant-garde short fluctuates from pleasure to poignancy, often weaved with a state of playfulness. Jacobs takes advantage of the camera's playability and defines an intrinsic attention-grabbing presentation of his relationship to the medium of film.