Happening

Definitely the most important movie of the year, maybe even the best movie of the year. Diwan’s directing is careful and everything is so perfectly framed. Everything that needed to be shown and presented simply was. It makes for some harrowing, hard viewing, but it’s also very honest and nonjudgemental. The tone, horror and restraint was all handled amazingly in my opinion. Vartolomei is fantastic in a role I’d imagine wasn’t easy to act or film. Beautifully done.

French abortion diary that visualizes the 60s in succulent colors and the usual Dardennes-influenced hand-held close-to-medium shots. It gets rather graphic by the end and I wonder if the contrast between this body horror and the picturesque nouvelle vague stylings is the one original idea brought to the table. Otherwise, it's an empty genre film; the scenes suggest themselves.

Several really good films have already been made about this subject including 'Vera Drake', '4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days' and 'Never Rarely Sometimes Always'. This Dardenne-ish picture is probably the best of the bunch, though.

Incredibly well made and guts wrenching story about a young girl in the 60s France that gets pregnant and are driven to abortion from a society not made for her situation.

Sometimes it feels too Dardennes-ish in its approach to story, but at least this is totally character-driven and doesn't try to build a panel on the subject os something like that. Bonnaire shines in every shot.