HAPPY END MAST D: Michael Haneke. France/Austria/Germany. 107 min. Sep 10, 5:45 pm, Winter Garden Sep 11, 9:15 am, TIFF Bell Lightbox 1. Rating: NNNN
Haneke returns to familiar territory in this well-paced and riveting indictment of the bourgeoisie.
The dysfunction in this French family covers all three of its generations, from the patriarch teetering with dementia (Jean-Louis Trintignant) to his 12-year-old granddaughter who uses social media like an assassin. Then there’s his daughter (Isabelle Huppert, brilliant) the cold, calculating CEO of the vast family business who skims over the internecine family skirmishes like an expert surfer.
Who cares if the film is filled with the usual Haneke tropes? He’s the Mozart of 21st–century middle-class angst.
His cynical camera slices and dices the proceedings with black comic glee, while making it clear that the family is barely aware of the refugees outside on the streets of Calais.
