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Happy End | 2017 | R | - 2.4.5

French family drama packed with instances of depression, suicide, infidelity and other self-destructive behaviors. With Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Mathieu Kassovitz, Fantine Harduin, Franz Rogowski, Laura Verlinden, Aurélia Petit and Toby Jones. Directed by Michael Haneke. In French with English subtitles. [1:47]

SEX/NUDITY 2 - A man and a woman exchange online messages and make references to sexual activity (in explicit terms) that either they have engaged in or wish to engage in. A pre-teen girl confronts her father about having an affair and having read online messages about it.
 A man and a woman hold hands.
 A woman wears a nightdress that clings to her buttocks. A woman's bare legs are seen when she is shown unconscious in a hospital bed. Men, women and children wear swimsuits in a beach scene and we see the men's chests and abdomens and women's cleavage and abdomens. A shirtless man lies in bed alone (we see his bare chest, abdomen and back). Several women wear low-cut evening gowns at a celebration (we see cleavage). A young girl is shown wearing a T-shirt and underwear that reveal her bare legs to the hip.

VIOLENCE/GORE 4 - A man shoves a woman when she tries to stop him from interrupting a party and she grabs his hand and breaks his finger (we see the digit bent unnaturally).
 A man punches another man in the face (in a long shot) and kicks him in the face and stomach while he is on the ground (we hear grunting, and see the man's bloody face and he drools blood as he leans on a car). A young girl's leg is seen with a bloody bite mark on it from a dog and she cries. A man shoves another man when he tries to stop him from interrupting a party.
 Several scenes are presented as video from a cellphone: A hamster in a cage eats some of its food and we read that the person filming spiked its food with someone's depression medication and we watch the animal stop moving, and then the person filming shakes the cage and puts something inside that tips the animal on its side (it is motionless and presumably dead). We see a woman preparing for bed and brushing her teeth (we hear her spit and gargle); she also urinates (we hear trickling and a flush).
 We understand that a woman overdosed on medication and we see her in a hospital room with medical staff attending to her as her pre-teen daughter looks on from outside a window; someone says, "It's not looking good" and we understand later that the woman died. A pre-teen girl is seen in a hospital bed and her father quizzes her about being sad and depressed (she apparently attempted suicide with pills she took from her mother).
 A pre-teen girl pushes an elderly man in a wheelchair toward a boat launching ramp and near the water's edge (at the man's request), she leaves him and walks away but watches him as he rolls himself into the water up to his shoulders (we do not see him drown and he is presumably rescued). An elderly man walks with a cane through a dark garage and drives away in a small van; we understand that he drives into a tree (people conjecture that it was deliberate) and has several broken bones (we see him in a wheelchair with a cast on his leg later). An elderly man in a wheelchair pushes himself along a very busy road and stops several men to ask them to help him with something (we do not hear what he is saying, but it is possible that he is asking them to help him kill himself) and offers them his watch (they decline and walk away). A man does a manic karaoke performance including spinning around on the stage, tumbling and dancing. An elderly man asks another man to get him a gun or medication that he can use to kill himself. A pre-teen girl quizzes her father about whether he will take her with him when he leaves his wife and that she doesn't want to go to a home.
 A young teen boy mocks another boy about his hair and dancing, presumably on the Internet, and calls him names. We read that a pre-teen girl's brother died of pneumonia and she says, "It was horrible." A woman reprimands her adult son for "disappearing" and tells him that she was worried; she quizzes him about when he started drinking and we see that he has a bruised eye and bloody nose. We hear that a man left his wife and young daughter. We hear that a baby died from pneumonia. A man says, "I'm useless." A woman tells her adult son, "You're a hopeless case." A man tells his pre-teen granddaughter that he suffocated his wife when she was very ill. A man introduces a woman at a party as the family "slave" and compliments her food. A preteen girl tells her grandfather that she tried to poison another girl with Lexomil because she didn't like her. A man tells his pre-teen granddaughter about watching a bird of prey attack and tear apart another bird.
 A tall wall at a construction site crumbles into a deep hole and we understand that a worker at the site was injured (we see him OK later). Many people are shown on the deck of an oil rig waving their arms and it is not clear what is happening although we hear later about a union strike. A dog barks at a door for an extended time.
 A man urinates off-screen and we hear the stream. A man tells another man, "Don't wet yourself."

LANGUAGE 5 - About 3 F-words, 4 sexual references, 3 scatological terms, 4 anatomical terms, 2 mild obscenities, name-calling (dumb [anatomical term deleted], soft in the head, know-it-all, hopeless case, useless, geek, creepy, old girl, foolish, scared, crazy, naïve, idiot, moron, pig headed, clumsy, nutcase, strange), exclamations (stop), 3 religious exclamations (Jesus, God, Godsend).

SUBSTANCE USE - A woman overdoses on a medication and a doctor refers to an anti-malarial, and we understand that a pre-teen girl attempted suicide with prescription drugs that belong to her mother. People drink wine at dinner and a woman tells her adult son to show restraint when he pours himself a large glass and drinks, people drink champagne at a party, people drink wine with lunch, and a man drinks from a glass of wine with a meal. A man smokes a cigarette on a beach.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Family, self-destructive behavior, death, killing pets, abandonment, infidelity, overdose, depression, cyber-bullying, trust, regret.

MESSAGE - Some people just can't be happy.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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