Film review: Happy End

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Happy End

Dir: Michael Haneke; 110 mins

Austrian director Haneke works largely in the French language, perhaps latterly so that he could again pair two of his favourite actors – Isabelle Huppert and Jean-Louis Trintignant. Here they reprise the leading-role, father-daughter combination used to such devastating effect in his previous film, 2012’s Amour.

A repeated theme throughout Haneke’s career is the cynical representation of the bourgeoisie, and this tale of a monied family’s gathering at their seat in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, brings the mores and weaknesses of the upper middle classes to the fore once again. Resentment and animosity, too, are not far from the surface of the main characters, most of whom harbour secrets and guilt. But as is also the director’s usual preference, there is plenty of moral ambiguity for the viewer to contemplate.

The direction, too, is typically icy and detached, as the clan members, ranging from young children to an aged patriarch, tick boxes all along the emotional spectrum from the bored to the suicidal. And Haneke’s fascination for secretly filmed footage (again, so powerfully used in 2005’s Hidden) dominates much of the opening sequences, as do text messages, which he uses to express a disdain for modern communication madness.

Although by the time the film abruptly ends, some plot strands remain untied, Haneke proves himself again to be one of the most interesting and unique directors at work. As for a Happy End? Perhaps not, but this is jet-black funny in parts.

Also out: Garde Alternée. One of those high-concept French films destined for a Hollywood remake – in which a woman and her husband’s mistress conspire to share the naughty mec...