A French drama; A story about a young girl sent to stay in Calais with her father's dysfunctional bourgeois family and their own problems. This is a stark, unforgiving, and intermittently absorbing satire about an upper-middle-class family. Filmed like a puzzle, it is arguably maddening in its slow pace but also sharp in its meaning. Set in coastal Northern France, it deals with themes such as family despair and dysfunction, self-destruction, inter-generational revenge, and suppression of guilt. The interesting technological aspect of the story is that surveillance and video recording are devices for illustrating sordid desire and longing. As an aside, Michael Haneke has built a reputation for making films that confront his audience to make them feel uncomfortable, and there is little let-up with this offering.
Review of Happy End
