Happy End

The now wheelchair-bound industrialist “Georges” (Jean-Louis Tritignant) rather reluctantly approaches his eighty-fifth birthday having contemplated suicide and having largely lost interest in the lives of his daughter “Anne” (Isabelle Huppert) who has been running his business, and surgeon son “Thomas” (Matthieu Kassovitz) who has recently married “Anaïs” (Laura Verlinden) and had a young son to go with “Eve” (Fantine Harduin), his thirteen year old daughter from a first marriage that ended years earlier, but is now immersing “Eve” in a new kind of tragedy. There used to be an adage that the first generation made the money, the second enriched it and the third squandered it. Well that might be the case here as “Pierre” (Franz Rogowski) appears to have little interest in following in his mother’s footsteps - preferring the bottle instead and causing quite a bit of consternation in the process. Observing all of this, from the periphery, is the young “Eve” who feels unloved, unwanted and confused by her father’s selfishly erratic behaviour. They have a large home, near Calais and it’s huge refugee camp, which is just as well because they have so many secrets and demons to keep in their closets, that it’s hard to keep up with just who is the biggest liar, deceiver or even killer amongst these outwardly respectable pillars of the community. To be honest, I did find some of the scenarios a bit too contrived, especially the rapport between grandfather and granddaughter, and though he did deliver a killer disco, Rogowski doesn’t really feature enough to develop what I assume was intended to be quite a quirky character of his own. His is, though, the only role that attempts to showcase some of the incongruities of their champagne and canapé lifestyle whilst emigrants live in tarpaulin tents a few miles away, but again that contrast isn’t really developed well. The conclusion made perfect sense, from the old gent’s perspective, and as an ensemble effort it delivers fine, just not quite the sum of it’s parts.