A Happy Event (2011)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

The film's honesty can at times be hilarious, sensual, and painful. As you watch the lively young couple from act 1 morph into something unrecognizable, you can't help but feel despair. Only once the couple has reached rock-bottom can they begin to re-emerge, learning how to become themselves again. As Nico attempts to become the breadwinner, he slowly becomes cold and callous, unsympathetic to Barb and nothing like his former self. Barb becomes isolated, barely talking to her friends and even Nico, making Lea her life. Louise Bourgoin does a wonderful job of expressing the anguish her character feels, through blank stares and tears. I love the way this film explores postpartum depression in a real way, and how as the characters gradually have their love drained out of them, so does the color and light of the film, leaving only a blue-gray tone. Only when Barb begins to heal with the help of her mother, and Nico's gradual understanding of Barb's pain as he attempts to fulfill Barb's former role does warmth enter the screen again, signaling a new beginning for both her and Nico. A simple story in the sense it is a common occurrence in life, but extremely well executed.

UN HEUREUX EVENEMENTAdapted from Eliane Abecassis' (very) autobiographical novel recounting her own (rather sour) experience of pregnancy and baby raising, "Un heureux événement" (A Happy Event) cannot be called a feelgood movie but it is an interesting one nonetheless provided of course you are not an expecting woman, a future dad or simply someone fainthearted. For the main quality of director Rémi Bezançon (whose former film was the excellent "Le premier jour du reste de ta vie") is his full frontal approach to the subject, without any false prudery or watering down. "Un heureux événement" (quite an ironic title since, as exemplified here, having a baby is not necessarily an experience in keeping with the "happy event" cliché) deals with the case of Barbara (Louise Bourgoin), a philosophy student doing a doctoral thesis, who, after falling in love with Nicolas (Pio Marmaï), finds herself with child. Not that she is a born mother (she is even a dedicated feminist) but love changes everything, which leads her to grant Nicolas' desire to keep the baby. Of course she has no experience in the field but she is determined to practice learning by doing: how to be a pregnant woman, how to prepare for childbirth, how to go through the stages of labor and baby delivery and how to become a parent. Not an easy path for sure but one that millions of first-time mothers follow more or less overcome with anguish but successfully in the end. And this is what what would normally happen to Barbara who, with this wonderful gift, hopes to make her companion happy. Alas! Nicolas gradually turns from Prince Charming to Naughty Brat unable to hold his responsibilities, a bit like those kids who ask for a pet without the least notion of all the investment which goes with it, leaving it to their parents. From then on, Barbara (as well as her couple) sinks into the doldrums and the "happy event" gradually turns into a dreadful burden.If you have seen "Le premier jour du reste de ta vie", you will certainly find this movie less inventive and original. In the former film, Remi Bezançon had managed to tell the story of a singular family presented successively by its five members, each one reporting a key event filtered through their own subjectivity. Here, there is only one point of view (Barbara's) and the story is told in chronological order, without the fancy displayed in the former work (one exception though: a weird nightmare sequence). But this does not mean that the director has lost his creative sense. The unsophisticated form is actually a deliberate artistic choice, Bezançon's camera following Barbara's slow but implacable descent into hell from the beginning to its close in a documentary-like way, with nothing to distract the viewer. Which makes his film a dour realistic work whose uncompromising approach may account for its mixed results at the box office. But it is also a film that rings true (Eliette Abecassis knows what she is talking about), very well interpreted by Lise Bourgoin who, despite (or maybe because) her personal lack of experience of motherhood, is totally and courageously invested in her role. Heartthrob Pio Marmai is very good too in his embodiment of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" as defined by Milan Kundera.Not a pleasant film experience, as I wrote before (but must the arts always please us?), "Un heureux événement" is a worthwhile one though, at least for those whose defense mechanisms are strong enough to stand it.

I guess today the questions about when and how to have kids and especially how to stay in a couple afterwards are becoming more and more difficult to answer. Actually in every movie I see on the topic, they try to persuade me that the only way to do it right is your way, but this usually doesn't'go without about a bit of socio-cultural propaganda about mothers, father and families. And this is the what I like about this movie - it doesn't lead you to preset conclusions, in fact it dos quite the opposite. Every time during the movie, when I thought I knew where this was going, it actually turned the other way around. But never the less when you look to the whole string of events, everything fits, everything is believable and actually can picture yourself or someone you know closely in such a situation. I actually quite remembered saying and thinking the same things as Barbara though the kid-having moment hasn't come to me yet. But apart being so honest and sincerely questioning our stands on the points of having kids, this movie has other great quality and this is the chemistry between the Bab and Nico. It's just that you feel their connection, you feel what is like to "love someone so much that the bet thing to do out of this love is to have a child". And this is great, because this is the answer of all the questions - love and slefgiving. You loose your way when you forget that. So in conclusion - you want to see this movie because it is gentle, it is sincere and will put you in the mood for love.

Why has this movie not been made already? Its such a believable, everyday story, and it shows the way life really is. Two people meet, they have a sweet courting period, they're perfect together, they have a baby. And then its like two new people that have to start over with a new set of tough constraints & pressures. But they muddle along and work together, on the baby and on their own lives at the same time.I thought this was an extremely well conveyed telling of a story that we all know, but that can't be told too often. Every instance of it is unique, but with universal themes.I enjoyed the drama-less drama of this movie: life itself in its mundane details is so dramatic!