Happy End

There’s a bit of a cliche among film snobs about how foreign movies are always better than American movies. This isn’t always true, of course. What is true is that European films do have a different attitude and point of view to the same concepts.  Happy End, for example, is very similar in terms of basic plot, to many American movies I’ve seen. But it’s better. There’s an honesty and realism I find in Happy End that American films with similar themes lack.

Happy End begins with Lucca, a successful student on track to follow her father’s footsteps into law. However, she is mistakenly accused of a crime and sentenced to do community service at a local hospice. Here she meets Valerie who also works there. Valerie is close to many of the patients but rude to their often absent family members. When Valerie’s friend Herma dies, Valerie rails against the family’s wishes to have Herma buried in her family plot (a family Herma hated). So,Valerie steals the ashes. Lucca ends up joining her on a road trip complete with romantic tension to deliver Herma to her desired resting place.

One things this movie succeeds in is the balance of drama and comedy. Happy End succeeds because it didn’t feel the need to overstate the comedy to juxtapose the drama. The story is a wacky hijinks plot involving a stolen dead relative and a road trip. Smartly, Happy End tends to let this humour speak for itself instead of drawing too much attention to it. Instead, weight is given to this wacky plot of dead person theft beyond its comedic value. Valerie has emotional investment in it which isn’t just treated as a wacky whim or misunderstanding. The motivation behind the action is well thought-out so it seems realistic. Because of that step, I accepted both the drama of the story as well as the comedy in those well-chosen moments when it did get a little wacky.

If you’ve read this far and want to see the movie, I might suggest stopping now because I’m going to talk about the film’s third act revelation. The third act of Happy End reveals that Valerie is dying. In this moment, a lot of the movie makes a lot of sense. Her working at the hospice, anger at absentee families and vehement desire for Herma to be given her last wishes all tie into Valerie confronting her own mortality and wanting to do the same to others as she would want done to her. Also, as far as reasons for being emotionally distant and unwilling to engage in a relationship, that’s a pretty good one.

I’ve never seen imminent death portrayed like this before. Despite Valerie’s diagnosis, she and Lucca do begin a relationship. And they actually have an enjoyable time and treasure the time they spent together instead of it being a montage of all angst all the time. It should also be noted that Valerie chooses to die by doctor assisted suicide. I’m not going to make any judgment calls about that because this is a lesbian movie site. I will say it was nice not to have one of those emotionally manipulative sequences of Valerie getting sicker and weaker and sadder before dying. Instead, her and Lucca had a really good time until Valerie wasn’t able to and when she got to that place, she ended it.

Finally, it was really nice to see the aftermath of this. Because while this is a movie where a lesbian dies, it’s not necessarily tragic. Lucca is sad, yes. But she moves on with her life, grows from her experiences with Valerie and treasures the time they had. How fucking radical is that? The idea that you can cherish someone’s life and memories but move on rather than showing the remaining partner never feeling happiness again. This film is mature enough to understand that Lucca is still young and though it is the end of Valerie’s life, it is just the beginning of Lucca’s.

I don’t know if it’s fair to say that this film is good for European reasons so I’m just going to say this film is good. The filmmaker is excellent as are the two leads. I was really pleased to see such valid emotional depth without the unnecessary emotional manipulation that tends to go hand in hand with such. The emotional honesty that this film manages to achieve is delightful and something all filmmakers, American and otherwise should take note of.

Overall rating: 7.7/10

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