Happy End

I viewed Haneke's entire filmography back when it was all available to stream on Netflix, and I believe he's the most important filmmaker alive today. Even his movies that are my least favorite (71 Fragments, Time of the Wolf) have scenes that are mesmerizing, moments of resonance that linger with you long after the credits have rolled. Because I can't say the same for Happy End, I worry that this film might be his most unremarkable.

Certainly, like all of Haneke's films, Happy End is beautifully shot, realistically acted, and has enough suspense, tension, and thought-provoking insight to keep the mind active. A scene late in the film between the patriarch (Jean-Louis Trintignant, doing a variation of his role in Amour) and his granddaughter (Fantine Harduin) is a standout; for a moment, it seems as though a heartfelt interrogation between a man at the end of his life and a woman at the beginning of hers might reveal some secret about the ultimate meaning of living, though of course it turns out that neither of them has any idea what it all means. This scene intrigued me, but it still left me disappointed.

Likewise with the climax, which, I think, attempts to pull off something similar to what he accomplished with Funny Games. Funny Games was ultimately a critique of the spectacle of violent entertainment, frequently asking the viewer to pause and ask, "Why the hell did I pay to see this? What enjoyment or edification was I expecting from seeing a family get tortured?" It seems to me that Happy End hints at something comparable at the dinner party towards the end, when the camera moves away from the suffering of these miserable, self-hating, filthy rich, and terribly boring people in order to briefly highlight the lives of refugees who are trying to escape to the economic opportunities of the UK. Here Haneke seems to ask, Why'd you pay to see the haute bourgeoisie simmer over their self-inflicted "problems" when there are real things at stake in the world? All the same, this jab is perhaps too subtle and ultimately stings of the "contempt for the viewer" that so many detractors have always accused Haneke of having but which I've never actually been able to detect. If that's the case, why make this expensive-looking movie at all? Why not make a different film--either one that more consciously highlights the refugee crisis, or one that more scathingly indicts the chamber drama genre?

Haneke trains his incisive gaze on many interesting issues throughout Happy End--psychopathy, greed, social media, suicide, depression, euthanasia, immigration, class conflict, corporate liability--but what he ultimately stirs up is a lot more tired, a lot less insightful, and far more "meh" than anything he's ever produced before.

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.

Like others, the main reason I went to see this film was Michael Haneke. Although I always thought that he lacks humor and takes himself too seriously, he did make some outstanding and memorable films. Unfortunately, this one feels stale, redundant, and out of step with the times. The subject matter, the bourgeoisie entrapped in their self-serving bubble as a theme, has been shown so many times, and in much more poignant ways, including by Haneke himself. This film doesn't add anything new or noteworthy, neither with the story, nor with the style.

The way social media and phone messages are shown also feels embarrassingly dated, like a grandfather explaining this "new" phenomenon. "Cache" was made over a decade ago, and technology and the discourses of its impacts have moved on with furious speed; apparently, Haneke has not. Even the metaphor of using Calais and the migrant 'jungle' as point here misses its mark. It tries to be smart about it, but, once again, it just feels old in its approach.

Interestingly enough, another western European film, the Swedish "The Square," dealt with some similar themes and issues in the same year, but was more successful with its narrative framework and style. "Happy End" just felt boring, not necessarily because of the long takes alone, but because of its uninspired re-threading of familiar ground. Because of that, those long takes eventually really did become boring. Perhaps Haneke will resurface with some interesting new work, or perhaps it is really time for him to retire. In any case, I hope the comparisons to Bunuel will cease. Bunuel was a pioneer with his films; this is a film by an old man, who doesn't seem to have much new to say any more.

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

If you'd like to feel good about your family, then see Happy End, written and directed by an Austrian, Michael Haneke, with a dollop of Euro horror that seems to combine elements of Roman Polanski and Mike Nichols. This family flirts with self-destruction across the generations.

Patriarch Georges Laurent (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is celebrating his 85th birthday with enough of his wit left to remember he dispatched his ailing wife to the next life out of concern for her pain. Similarly his granddaughter, 13 year old Eve (Fantine Harduin), attempted to poison a classmate and recently to commit suicide. Across the generations, this is not a happy family. However, a happy end they may have if even-keeled, task-oriented Georges' daughter, Anne (Isabelle Huppert), prevails. Not likely.

For all their wealth, each member, even comely and charming daughter Anne, is unhappy, she with a grown son, Pierre (Franz Rogowski), who is not socially or mentally well balanced. He can't even sing Karaoke without endangering his life. That Karaoke scene is a keeper in modern cinema.

Yet the family does ritual dining and socializing, right down to inviting friends and relatives to an intimate concert that is not euphonious to say the least. Just another off-balance moment. All the pretty dining and servants can't mask the undercurrent of familial larceny.

Haneke's use of modern technology from the live-streaming video during the opening bathroom scene to the exposure of a love affair through instant messaging casts an unflattering, harsh light on whatever the family may want to hide but can't. Even a work accident is seen through a security camera. As in Haneke's Cache, surveillance is revealing but never a solution.

Anne's engagement party could have been the democratizing of this family, but rather becomes a debacle when Pierre brings unannounced African immigrants with the beginnings of a diatribe against immigration policies. The result is mutilation, not reconciliation.

Happy End will not have a happy end for audiences unwilling to do some heavy thinking about the various puzzle pieces from each episode that eventually create a mosaic of modern bourgeois dysfunction. As such, the film may be difficult and tedious for general audiences.

Privilege has inured the principals to the plight of the servants in their household (the dog-bite sequence is particularly unnerving) and the unwanted immigrants at their wedding. This scurrilous neglect, passed down to generations, reflects not just a French problem (they are in Calais, after all, the port for refugee chaos) when the audience may consider the growing class disparities around the world and callous care about the poor and homeless.

Happy End, in the end, is about cankerous abandon in privilege, whose end may be no less than murder and suicide. Whatever, it's not pretty but a rewarding artistic experience.

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.