Happy End

An almost prototypically underwhelming effort from Michael Haneke, Happy End follows several members of an affluent French family as they go about their lives over the course of a few especially eventful weeks – with the narrative detailing, for example, the exploits of a troubled young girl (Fantine Harduin’s Eve) sent to live with her father (Mathieu Kassovitz’s Thomas) and an older man (Jean-Louis Trintignant’s Georges) determined to kill himself. Filmmaker Haneke’s now eye-rolling penchant for attempting to jolt the viewer is firmly in place right from the outset, as Happy End opens with the apparent death of a hamster and proceeds into a comparatively tame narrative that nevertheless boasts a handful of “shocking” (yet ineffective) moments. Haneke, working from his own screenplay, delivers a meandering narrative that generally resembles a typical domestic drama (albeit one that withholds pivotal information from the viewer until the last possible minute), with the ongoing inclusion of seemingly nonsensical elements and segues certainly perpetuating Happy End‘s semi-watchable yet thoroughly hands-off atmosphere. (What are we to make, for example, of a thoroughly bizarre karaoke sequence?) The somewhat captivating final stretch ensures that the whole thing ends on a relatively strong note, though it’s ultimately unable to compensate for an otherwise uninvolving atmosphere.

** out of ****