Happening (film)

Happening (French: L'Événement) is a 2021 French period drama thriller film directed by Audrey Diwan. The film's adapted screenplay was written by Diwan and Marcia Romano from the 2000 memoir Happening by Annie Ernaux. Set in 1963, the film stars Anamaria Vartolomei as Anne, who experiences the emotionally and physically traumatic process of obtaining an abortion in France before it was legalized. The film also stars Luàna Bajrami, Pio Marmaï, Sandrine Bonnaire, Anna Mouglalis, Louise Chevillotte, Kacey Mottet Kelin, and Louise Orry-Diquéro in supporting roles with cinematography by Laurent Tangy.

Happening premiered at the 78th Venice International Film Festival on September 6, 2021, where it won the Golden Lion and received universal acclaim from critics. It was released in French theatres by Wild Bunch on 24 November 2021. It was well received, being nominated for and winning numerous awards at the BAFTAs, Gotham Awards, Lumières Awards, and César Awards.

Plot

In 1963 France, Anne is a promising university student in Angoulême. Despite having several close friends, she is often ridiculed by other students for supposedly being promiscuous. However, it is stated multiple times that all of the students "want the same thing".

While visiting her family in the country, Anne goes to see her doctor. Despite her asserting that she is still a virgin, the doctor informs her she is pregnant. Anne begs him to terminate it and he refuses, telling her that what she is asking is illegal. Anne visits another doctor in the city and also asks him for help with an abortion. He prescribes her an injection, promising her it will induce a miscarriage. When it fails, Anne searches for a doctor to perform a surgical abortion. Later we learn the injection was actually estradiol which, unbeknownst to Anne, helps maintain the pregnancy.

Anne approaches a classmate, Jean, for help. He says that he doesn't know anyone who can help her and propositions her for sex, noting there is no risk since she is already pregnant. Growing increasingly desperate, Anne attempts to perform an abortion on herself with a knitting needle on her bedroom floor, which fails. She informs her friends, who previously shared their desires for sexual intimacy, that she is pregnant and is trying to have an abortion and they abandon her. As her grades begin to suffer and her chance at graduating with honours begins to slip away, Anne goes to see Maxime, her "boyfriend". Having previously been told by Anne that she intended to have an abortion, he is shocked to learn she is still pregnant, thinking she could handle the situation on her own. They fight and she returns to school, gaining no support from Maxime for the rest of the film.

Jean approaches Anne at night to introduce her to a female friend who has had an abortion. The friend gives her the number of a doctor, explaining that the abortion will be painful and cost 400 francs in advance. Anne sells all of her belongings to pay for the abortion. It takes place in a woman's apartment on her kitchen table. The woman instructs Anne that she will have to be silent so her neighbours do not hear. She inserts a wand and tells Anne that she will start to miscarry in 24 hours. Anne fails to miscarry and returns to the abortionist who inserts a second wand, telling her it is possible there will be complications. Anne decides to go through with the procedure nevertheless and returns to her dorm where she has a complicated and painful miscarriage. Anne is found by a dorm mate who helps to cut the umbilical cord and calls an ambulance. Her condition is labelled a miscarriage.

The film ends with Anne returning to university to take her final exams.

Cast

Anamaria Vartolomei as Anne
Kacey Mottet Klein as Jean
Sandrine Bonnaire as Gabrielle Duchesne
Louise Orry-Diquero as Brigitte
Louise Chevillotte as Olivia
Pio Marmaï as Professeur Bornec
Anna Mouglalis as Mme Rivière
Fabrizio Rongione as Dr. Ravinsky
Luàna Bajrami as Hélène
Leonor Oberson as Claire
Julien Frison as Maxime
Alice de Lencquesaing as Laëtitia

Production

During an interview on 23 April 2019 about her directorial debut film Losing It, screenwriter Audrey Diwan revealed she was adapting Annie Ernaux's 2000 memoir L'événement (translated as Happening), stating that the book was "very important" to her. On 29 May 2020, the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée, an agency of the French Ministry of Culture, announced they would support the film, moving the project into pre-production.

Principal photography for the film commenced on 27 July 2020 and took place throughout the summer. The film entered post-production in January 2021.

Release

The film had its world premiere in competition at the 78th Venice International Film Festival on 6 September 2021. Wild Bunch acquired distribution rights to the film for France in July 2021. Happening screened in the Spotlight section of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. It was released in the United States on May 6, 2022, and is available to watch on streaming platforms such as Youtube, Hulu, and Amazon Prime.

Reception

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 99% of 172 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.5/10. The website's consensus reads, "A tough but rewarding watch, Happening puts a personal face on an impossibly difficult choice and its heart-rending aftermath." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 86 out of 100 based on 36 critics' reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".

Guy Lodge, writing for Variety, praised the film's acting, particularly that of Anamaria Vartolomei's in the lead role that was described as "career-elevating". The Guardian's film festival critic Xan Brooks called the film "serious, gripping and finally honourable" and commended the cinematography of Laurent Tangy, saying that "the picture's tight framing is like a noose around her neck".

In an interview with the Financial Times, Diwan stated her intention to not make Happening a period piece, knowing "what my character was going through is now a current situation in many countries." Justin Chang, a film critic for the Los Angeles Times and NPR's Fresh Air, commended Diwan's choice to not make the film feel like a period piece, despite being a "re-creation of the past", as he thought the film "might very well be a window into the future." Michael O'Sullivan, a reporter and film critic for The Washington Post, states that Happening serves as a "sobering reminder that the consequences of limiting access to safe medical care aren't just theoretical but existential." At the time of the review in 2022, the U.S Supreme Court had recently made the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which had made access to abortion a constitutional right in the United States.