There are few names that have evoked the concept of “revolutionary auteur” quite like Michael Haneke – throughout his career, Haneke has pushed the boundaries of cinema, making audacious and often extremely shocking films about the human condition, showing the smallest nuances of society and the problems that individuals face within harsh socio-political and economic environments. Whether it be the shocking and brutal psychological horrors of Benny’s Video or Funny Games, or the delicate view of humanity in dramas such as Amour and The White Ribbon, Haneke has always been an extraordinary filmmaker. His most recent film, Happy End, is perhaps not quite as successful as his more acclaimed projects, and while it is still a good film, there are numerous flaws and problems, and it can only conjure up one large question: what precisely was Michael Haneke trying to say with this film?

Happy End takes place in Calais, a port city in France. It is focused on the Laurent family, a wealthy dynasty who are more concerned with social engagements that social issues, such as the migrant crisis that is quite literally on their doorstep, with the famed refugee camp the Calais Jungle not being far from where these characters conduct their daily routines. Matriarch Anne Laurent (Isabelle Huppert) is a ruthless businesswoman who has taken over the ownership of a large construction company from her father, the ailing and frail Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant), who wants nothing more than to just die, but his perfect health keeps him from achieving that very bleak ambition. One of the opening scenes of the film shows security footage from a construction site, where a worker suffers what is to be a fatal accident, which puts the Laurent Company into legal trouble, as there are allegations that their safety measures were insufficient. This forms one of the major themes of the film. The other theme of Happy End (and by far the most effective one) is that of Eve (Fantine Harduin), the thirteen-year-old daughter of Anne’s brother, surgeon Thomas (Mathieu Kassovitz), who has recently re-married after he and his first wife divorced, having just welcomed a child into the world with his second wife, the beautiful but oblivious Anaïs (Laura Verlinden). Eve, being the typical rebellious teenager, decides to play a prank on her mother, giving her a near-fatal overdose of medication which sends her into a coma (and eventually results in her death), and forces the young girl into living with her father and his eccentric family, taking her from her humble previous home into the superficial life of the rich and affluential.

Haneke has always brought out the very best in his casts, and even allowed a pair of French New Wave icons – Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant – to late-career renaissances with his extraordinary film Amour. His films, for better or worse, always feature strong performances, and Happy End, while an imperfect film, does feature some noteworthy performances. However, none of them are overly memorable, nor does he give many of these actors anything particularly groundbreaking to do. It almost seems as if Haneke compiled a set of remarkable performers, and have the characters that were most certainly within their wheelhouses, in the hopes that they would at least be reliable. If this was the intention, it was a success, but the consequence is a set of solid but uninspiring performances without much behind them. I was so enthusiastic about Isabelle Huppert being in this film, mainly because she gave arguably her finest screen performance to date in Haneke’s twisted romantic thriller The Piano Teacher (some may argue her finest performance came in either Elle or Things to Come). As an ardent devotee of the extraordinary Huppert, I was slightly disappointed in how under-utilized she was in this film. She is as wonderful as she always is, and she has some lovely moments, but she is unfortunately relegated to the background most of the time, and her character lacks complexity (a common trait amongst many of the characters in this film, whereby they lack much development). Mathieu Kassovitz has a good role as the surgeon who has to grapple with his own unstoppable infidelity when his daughter re-enters his life, but there is not much underneath the surface with this performance. Other potentially fascinating characters, such as Lawrence Bradshaw (Toby Jones), the British fiance of Huppert’s character, and Pierre (Franz Rogowski), her alcoholic son, are wasted as they serve to merely be plot devices and weak ones at that.

However, there are two very good performances in this film, which almost single-handedly elevate it from being purely mediocre. Jean-Louis Trintignant, from the outset, seems to be positioned as a disposable patriarchal figure, the elderly man who is respected but ignored. There are multiple instances of casting an iconic performer in a role that simply requires their presence to be successful (almost as if the magnitude of their status as a legend is somehow sufficient), and it only works when the film around them is able to boost their “performance”. Luckily, this was not the case with Happy End, as Trintignant was the one elevating this film. His character of Georges is hilarious and tragic in equal measures, an eccentric old man whose dementia is often the subject of levity, but also a figure who ultimately has the saddest disposition, growing old and frail and wanting to be liberated from his suffering, by any means necessary – when his own failures to commit suicide fail, he turns to others to assist him, including one of the Moroccan servants employed in his household, and his grand-daughter, who seems to be reluctant but morbidly fascinated with the concept of death, and is willing to help her grandfather end his life. Fantine Harduin is a true revelation in Happy End, being capable of such genuine emotion through a very quiet performance. It is a wonderful breakthrough for an actress with such potential, and I found despite the presence of some notable names, it was Harduin who was the emotional core of this film. She and Trintignant are perhaps the only aspects of this film worth noting because their performances are complex and are the closest to well-developed characters in the entire film.

To be perfectly honest, I was not entirely sure what Haneke was trying to make with Happy End. This is a bilateral film, and like nearly all of his films, both sides operate in a way that is both stark and complimentary to each other. Happy End seemed to be Haneke’s attempt at a social comedy, a film that satirizes the soulless and superficial life of the wealthy and influential. It is difficult to see Happy End as anything more than Haneke attempting to take the cue of Luis Buñuel, and his iconic masterpiece The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, and make it contemporary. It does not work, not as a broad comedy, nor as a darkly comical satire. These characters are not well-developed enough to be proper caricatures of the wealthy, and their complexities are almost entirely non-existent. These characters are archetypes without nuance, and thus their emotional journey simply is not strong enough to draw the audience in and elicit any kind of emotion. The story itself is not particularly strong, and there are far too many plot threads that the audience is led to believe will intertwine, but never do. This film lacks focus and proportion, and the comedy (if there was supposed to be an element of comedy in this film, or else Haneke just makes light of the bleakest situations unintentionally, which is not particularly good), is ineffective. Tonally, Happy End is inconsistent and unreliable, and it ultimately a misguided film in terms of social commentary – and the statement on the superficiality of the wealthy is not even the most problematic aspect of this film, with that being what we are about to discuss:

In the early stages of this film, Happy End was marketed as a film with the migrant crisis forming the backdrop of the film. This is certainly a contentious issue, but Haneke has always been a filmmaker extremely aware of the current social, political and economic climate around the world, so Happy End was bound to be something notable, if only because of it tackling a very contemporary, current issue. Unfortunately, it truly did form the backdrop of this film – meaning that the migrant crisis was mentioned once or twice, and culminated in a scene that was supposed to be shocking and electrifying, but ultimately didn’t work. This theme of the migrant crisis could have been substantially explored in more detail, and the juxtaposition between the wealthy Laurent family and the desperate migrants could have made for a marvelous, socially-relevant film. Yet, there was nearly nothing original said about the issue, and Haneke chooses to distract from the crisis with exemplifications of the excess of the wealthy. It quite simply does not work and results in a mediocre film. Once again, we have to compare Happy End to The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, insofar as both are films about the laughable excesses of the wealthy and influential, with current social issues in the background – the migrant crisis for the former, the rising social movements in South America in the latter. Yet, this socially-charged satire that was present in Buñuel’s film is entirely lost in Happy End, a film that decides to be far more self-important than it needed to be, without putting in the effort of making an original statement.

Happy End is not a great film, but it’s not a bad one either. Haneke is able to convey the current world exceptionally well, with many moments in this film reflecting the technologically-obsessed mindset of the present world – there are scenes shot through the lens of a cellphone, lengthy Facebook, and email exchanges, and an undeniable air of the virality of crises, with human suffering being merely another tool for entertainment. The problem with Happy End is that for a film about suffering, it does a poor job of showing it properly. There is legitimate anger within Happy End, but it isn’t adequately explored. A reliable cast cannot save this film from being a tonal catastrophe, and an uninspiring commentary on society. The prestige involved in this film does not distract from the fact that Happy End is just not that good. It is not terrible by any mean, but rather a misguided, badly-formed attempt at satire without any meaning behind it. What is the point of making a film about the heartlessness of the bourgeoisie with the film itself entirely lacking soul? Happy End is an average film, and will not be the highlight in the careers of anyone involved, but rather an interesting but uninspiring exploration of the human condition, yet having so little to actually say about it.