Happy End

Name: Happy End
Genre: Drama
Released: December 22, 2017
Duration: 107 min
Rating: 72
Cast: Aurélia Petit, Fantine Harduin, Franz Rogowski, Hassam Ghancy, Hille Perl

2017

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 34 Ratings

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6.6

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6.6	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 34 Ratings

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Movie Details & Credits

Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: December 22, 2017 | Not Rated

Starring: Aurélia Petit, Fantine Harduin, Franz Rogowski, Hassam Ghancy, Hille Perl, Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Laura Verlinden, Mathieu Kassovitz, Toby Jones

Summary: A drama about a family set in Calais with the European refugee crisis as the backdrop.

Director: Michael Haneke

Genre(s): Drama

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 107 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Kate Taylor

Jan 11, 2018

Haneke's ensemble is uniformly excellent – the film is packed with intriguing and provocative encounters between its various oppositional characters – and the actors succeed in the difficult task of making these unpleasant people engaging enough that we stick with them throughout a film that the director successfully balances on a knife edge between satire and drama until its final (hilarious) conclusion. Read full review

Eric Kohn

May 27, 2017

Rather than smothering the material in bad vibes, the filmmaker uses them to gradually reveal a fascinating world in which anger and resentment becomes the only weapon any of these people know how to wield. Read full review

Calvin Wilson

Feb 15, 2018

An art film in the classic sense — ambitious, provocative and hard to shake off. Read full review

Peter Debruge

May 27, 2017

It’s as if the director has tied up loose ends from his earlier films, while forcing us to re-examine issues that have only grown more dire since he first brought them to our attention. Read full review

Deborah Young

May 27, 2017

Even admitting that films like Cache (Hidden), The White Ribbon and Amour have raised the bar higher and higher, Happy End feels like it’s pulling its punches and not in their league. For one thing, it’s hard to pin down the theme of the piece. Read full review

Peter Keough

Mar 14, 2018

Beautifully photographed, well composed, but disappointingly superficial. Read full review

Mick LaSalle

Dec 29, 2017

Happy End is the latest from Michael Haneke, an uncompromising filmmaker whose work is sometimes brilliant and sometimes hard to watch, and sometimes both, but not this time. Happy End is just hard to watch. Read full review

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User Reviews

LegitSalt

May 6, 2020

I go back and forth about who my favourite director is, and Michael Haneke is always amongst the finalists. Haneke’s style is so distinct, and his thematic consistency is so potent that it is hard not to become sucked into his oeuvre. While each of Haneke’s pieces explores tangentiallyI go back and forth about who my favourite director is, and Michael Haneke is always amongst the finalists. Haneke’s style is so distinct, and his thematic consistency is so potent that it is hard not to become sucked into his oeuvre. While each of Haneke’s pieces explores tangentially similar concepts and characters, the value of the pieces come from their differing minutia. Haneke recycles circumstances and characters because they work and can still be developed. Happy End and Amour both feature Jean-Louis Trintignant as a character named Georges who suffers from suicidal tendencies, and Happy End and Caché both feature a female lead named Anne Laurent. Happy End differs from these films in its presentation and sprawling cast of characters. Where Caché and Amour both feature a central woman by the name of Anne Laurent, the struggles she faces and the family she is surrounded by differ immensely. Happy End explores the relations that social media has with our interpersonal relations and our emotional capacities. Haneke may be older than many directors, but with Happy End, he shows that he understands not only technology and social media, but also how they are interfaced, interacted with, and socially presented. The film is very expansive and takes on so many things that it is hard to comprehend all the moving pieces fully with only one watch. With this film, Haneke shows that he can juggle myriad balls and deftly encapsulate the human condition.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

3ebfan511

Feb 17, 2019

This film is hard to quantify, and I would imagine it is not as good as his other films(which I have not seen) but it had enough there to keep me interested, despite a very...slow pace. The story however is a struggle to find a coherent meaning at times, and even at the end, but I believeThis film is hard to quantify, and I would imagine it is not as good as his other films(which I have not seen) but it had enough there to keep me interested, despite a very...slow pace. The story however is a struggle to find a coherent meaning at times, and even at the end, but I believe just enough was there, and there were a number of strong scenes, that make it a quality film. However the first 10 minutes are quite galacially slow...

Not knowing the director, I thought it was a good film, but some may find it dissapointing comparing it to his apparently more impactful previous films. Still a good film however, and worth seeing.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

zapV

Jan 31, 2018

Michael Haneke once again gives us his bleak examination of modern Europe, this time through the lense of a wealthy and troubled family.

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

JLuis_001

Mar 1, 2018

I'm perplexed and at the same time intrigued but also I'm a bit disappointed.

Happy End can be considered a pretentious, somber, provocative and certainly ambitious film. It includes a social criticism and simultaneously a look at the dark side of human nature. A basic and recurring themeI'm perplexed and at the same time intrigued but also I'm a bit disappointed.

Happy End can be considered a pretentious, somber, provocative and certainly ambitious film. It includes a social criticism and simultaneously a look at the dark side of human nature. A basic and recurring theme in Michael Haneke's filmography and yet and although I know this sounds weird, Happy End feels like a movie made by someone else trying to make a film with Haneke's style.

I'm thinking about it but Happy End ultimately feels banal. I know it's a very strong word to describe a film by Michael Haneke but what I saw and felt with the film seems true to that description, because the story, the themes and what surrounds the characters, feels that way and I must point out that that has nothing to do with the overall quality of the film, the problem is that the characters feel empty even in spite of their secretive personalities and their problems.

Happy Ending tells a story that has characters that are manipulative, greedy, unfaithful and carefree. A bourgeois family that at first might seem to suffer of trivial problems, but knowing Haneke we know it's not the case.

We got to know Georges Laurent (Jean-Louis Trintignant), an elderly man and family patriarch who sufferes dementia and who also suffocated his own wife years before and now has a fervent desire to practice euthanasia and join his wife.
I must mention the obvious reference to the characters and events of Amour, in addition to the fact that Trintignant's character is called exactly the same and Isabelle Huppert plays his daughter again, although Happy End is not a sequel to Amour, you can actually create the illusion that it is.

Like I said, George wants to die but nobody is willing to help him, except someone too young who already seems to be emotionally and psychologically damaged, I mean his granddaughter, Ève (Fantine Harduin) who at the beginning of the film gives us a little look at something that apparently is very wrong with her. I can't say anything else because I would screw up the plot.

Needless to say, Happy End is a mystery, it's a complex one and its characters are discomfort, however you have to decipher most of the narrative because they all have secrets and obviously they hide them from the rest, they're all part of the problem regardless of whether some of them are not very interesting, however it's the final part that turns out to be the most provocative, because they all take a backseat except Georges and Ève because they both take disturbing decisions that end the film in an open and yet shocking way.

Needless to say that anyone who is not accustomed to Haneke's work or frankly are not interested in this type of film will not find something engaging but sure you can try it, I never try to discourage people's options.

No doubt this film is a good work but feel less in the career of this cinematographic titan and for the huge expectations I had, I can say I expected more and I definitively wanted more.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

leobrodsky

Dec 26, 2017

Dreadfully boring movie. All people are unhappy, but is not clear why. To show human life without explanation is sign of weakness. The title of movie is puzzled.

0 of 2 users found this helpful02

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