Adapting a 2000 memoir by Annie Ernaux, Audrey Diwan directs French-Romanian actress Anamaria Vartolomei (a quietly volcanic presence) as Anne. She’s a promising young student steadfastly committed to her studies, who dreams of becoming a writer, in France in 1963, a period right on the verge of social and political tumult (the students depicted are deep into reading and vigorously debating Sartre). But Anne is unexpectedly pregnant, and we slowly see her start to drift away from her studies and her social background, framed increasingly out of focus by cinematographer Laurent Tangy as the movie progresses. As the weeks of her pregnancy go by, it’s harder to hide her belly, but this is also a time of enormous stigma and shame around abortions, then illegal in France and relegated to behind-closed-doors operations whose outcomes are often prison or death.
Vartolomei’s gaze is either calculated, calculating, or information-absorbing, as the actress shifts between modes of terror, panic, confusion, and determination. Her emotions remain at an even keel until the film inevitably heads into its harrowing final passages, as Anne must take action or accept her pregnancy, with her fate mostly in the hands of men. The film’s tight framing is visibly influenced by films like Gus van Sant’s “Elephant,” Laszlo Nemes’ “Son of Saul, the Dardenne brothers, and Andrea Arnold. While “Happening” grips you with a docudrama-like realism, Diwan isn’t afraid to close the walls in on the viewer with a few cinematic flourishes that at times can make the experience feel like a horror movie. From IndieWire’s review out of Sundance: “Happening” will receive an exclusive theatrical release beginning May 6. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
