Happy end (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Michael Haneke
	Actors: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Isabelle Huppert, Mathieu Kassowitz, Franz Rogowski, Fantine Harduin
	Country: F, D, A
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 27.09.2017, Gondel, French version with German subtitle
Synopsis: George Laurent (Trintignant) is gradually succumbing to dementia. This octogenarian patriarch of upper-bourgeois family dislikes sharing his palatial manor in Calais, with his twice-married son, Thomas (Kassowitz), and Anne (Huppert), his divorced workaholic daughter who has taken over the family construction business. Anne has to handle the impact of a disastrous workplace accident caused by her disappointing son Pierre's (Rogowski) negligence, while at the same time, the urgent hospitalisation of Thomas' ex-wife from a mysterious poisoning, leads his sulky 13-year-old daughter, Ève (Harduin), to live with her father and his new wife.
Review: The basic thread is built up slowly. One could say too slow. But like in a Balzac's book, every character is painted so that you know what is his/her situation and what he/she aims at. And also you which reason he/she has to get rid of the old George Laurent or of somebody else in the family. Therefore the family dinners look so deadly in the atmosphere and in the goals of everyone.  As often Isabelle Huppert acts excellently the tormented introverted woman. Mathieu Kassowitz acts in a rare role for him and shows that he an excellent actor even when he is not really challenged nor in focus.  I had the impression that Haneke is directing for the sake of the story but limits the suspense to one scene and the final scene. The relatively boring parts that make most of the film are so in order to highlight these two scenes where the extreme drama appear without much noise but between the lines.
Rating: 5 /10