Happy end

An absorbing drama that makes quite a powerful statement about the fragmented nature of modern life. It's a sort-of sequel to Haneke's 'Amour', but the tone is so different I didn't register this at first. The director has a tendency to impose ideas upon the naturalistic flow of a story, twisting characters to the point of implausibility. He can be irritatingly oblique, also. Another criticism is that 'Happy End' has an uncertain mood: it utilises the format of a social comedy, but the sense of underlying dread and menace makes it impossible to read as 'black humour'. Well-acted and impeccably filmed, though.

A French drama; A story about a young girl sent to stay in Calais with her father's dysfunctional bourgeois family, who have their own problems. This is a stark, unforgiving, satire, sharp in meaning about a particular type of upper-middle-class family. Filmed like a puzzle, it is absorbing at times but also can be maddening due to its slow pace. Set in coastal Northern France, it covers topics such as family despair and dysfunction, personal self-destruction, intergenerational revenge, and suppression of guilt. One interesting aspect of the story is the surveillance and video recording devices used for illustrating sordid desire and longing. As an aside, director Michael Haneke has built a reputation for making films that confront his audiences to make them feel uncomfortable, and there is little let-up with this offering.

Beautiful, tender as flower and " light" in terms of Haneke's style - I expected it to be hard & taught.

Movie appeared to be the life story of few generations that are stuck in life. Somebody succeeds to leave successfully, somebody - not. Those who stuck do not suffer - they just lead the regular life - betray wife, indulge in sexual experiments, fight with spoiled kids, try to help refugees, solve probs at work & at home - regular lifetime routine.

In some moments boring (by the way, as our everyday life) and in some extremely beautiful as the sea, movie is calm, tranquil and spectacular.

We are all stuck and it's up to us to decide which direction to go - to go in or to go out.

I would like to write about last episodes of the movie: touching, deep, white, bright sea and the seaside are reminding me Marcelle Proust and Balbec times of his novel...

One can watch and be bored from the watching- but, probably, this is exactly the effect Haneke is aiming to achieve.

Forget all other reviews. Agree that Haneke is not for everybody. Not absolutely sure it is his best. As with most movies these days, one has trouble finding one's bearings during the first half hour or so. So may need to be watched more than once and it definitely should be watched twice at least.

The movie is very Haneke, very contemporary, A fresco of today's human condition by looking at the exquisitely delineated characters within an upper class French family. Hupert and Trintignant brilliant as usual, the teenager protagonist a total revelation. Technology, immigration, race and inequality traumas thrown in along with the usual dose of existential angst.

Likely to become a cult movie. Don't miss it.

Greetings again from the darkness. Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke has blessed us with, what I consider, at least five excellent movies (AMOUR, THE WHITE RIBBON, CACHE, FUNNY GAMES, THE PIANO TEACHER), and though it's been 5 years since his last, there is always a welcome anticipation for his next project. Unfortunately, this latest is esoteric and disjointed even beyond his usual style. In fact, at face value, it just seems only to be an accusation lobbed at the wealthy, stating that their privilege and cluelessness brings nothing but misery and difficulty to themselves and the rest of society.

We open on an unknown kid's secretive cell phone video filming of her mother getting ready for bed, followed by the mistreatment of a pet hamster as a lab rat, and finally video of her mother passed out on the sofa - just prior to an ambulance being called. Our attention is then turned to a family estate in Calais, which is inhabited by the octogenarian patriarch Georges (Jean-Louis Trintigant), his doctor son Thomas (Mathieu Kassovitz) and daughter Anne (Isabelle Huppert), Anne's malcontent son Pierre (Franz Rogowski), Thomas' wife and infant son, and the Moroccan couple who are household servants. While her mother is being treated for an overdose, 13 year old Eve (Fantine Harduin), moves in to the estate (Thomas is her re-married father). It's here that we learn the opening scenes were Eve's video work ... clearly establishing her as a damaged soul.

Initially, it seems as though we will see the family through Eve's eye, but what follows instead is the peeling back of family layers exposing the darkness and menace that haunts each of these characters. Georges appears to be intent on finding a way out of the life that has imprisoned his body and is now slowly taking his mind through dementia. Thomas is carrying on an illicit affair through raunchy email exchanges. Anne is trying to protect the family construction business from the incompetence of her son Pierre, while also looking for love with solicitor Toby Jones. At times, we are empathetic towards Eve's situation, but as soon as we let down our guard, her true colors emerge. The film is certainly at its best when Ms. Harduin's Eve is front and center. Her scene with her grandfather Georges uncovers their respective motivators, and is chilling and easily the film's finest moment.

The film was a Cannes Palme d'Or nominee, but we sense that was in respect to Mr. Haneke's legacy, and not for this particular film. The disjointed pieces lack the necessary mortar, or even a linking thread necessary for a cohesive tale. What constitutes a happy end ... or is one even possible? Perhaps that's the theme, but the film leaves us with a feeling of incompleteness - or perhaps Haneke just gave up trying to find such an ending, and decided commentary on the "bourgeois bubble" was sufficient.