Review: In ‘Happening,’ a riveting abortion drama

May 3, 2022, 8:09 AM | Updated: 8:58 am
This image released by IFC Films shows Anamaria Vartolomei in a scene from "Happening." (IFC Films ...

This image released by IFC Films shows Anamaria Vartolomei in a scene from "Happening." (IFC Films via AP)

(IFC Films via AP)

“Happening,” Audrey Diwan’s Golden Lion-winner at last year’s Venice Film Festival, is set in 1963 France but the period detail isn’t prominent. Instead, it’s an abortion tale that feels as though it could it could take place in many places, long ago or today.

It’s filmed in square-like academy ratio and it’s as if the edges of the frame are closing in on Anne Duchesne (Anamaria Vartolomei), a smart literature student — maybe even a brilliant one; we see her define “anaphora” without hesitation — who is shocked when a doctor informs her that she’s pregnant.

This is 12 years before abortion would be legalized in France and Anne’s predicament is immediately urgent. “Do something,” she tells the doctor, who replies that it’s impossible, “the law is unsparing.” For Anne, her apparently first sexual encounter threatens to derail her life just as it’s getting started. She comes from a working class background. Her parents — and most of all Anne, herself — have high expectations for her.

“I want to continue my studies,” she tells another doctor. “It’s essential for me.”

Films from Cristian Mungiu’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” to Eliza Hittman’s “Never Sometimes Always Rarely” have captured the human toll of systems that give women little choice when faced with an unwanted pregnancy. What distinguishes “Happening,” Diwan’s second feature film, is, overwhelmingly, her and Laurent Tangy’s tightly composed cinematography and Vartolomei’s riveting, steely performance. To a remarkable degree, “Happening” is viscerally connected with its protagonist, closely detailing not just her navigation of social taboos and restrictions but capturing her unapologetic determination. It’s a movie about abortion, yes, but it’s also a coming-of-age tale about a woman’s resolve.

“Happening,” which opens in select theaters Friday and expands afterward, is based on the 2001 memoir by celebrated French author Annie Ernaux, who framed her ’60s experience as it was recalled decades later by sifting through old journals and memories. Diwan’s film has no such framework, instead preferring to stay rigorously close to Anne’s experience as it’s unfolding. Abortion is to even her friends an unspeakable subject; just the hint of promiscuity is enough to make her nearly an outcast. In one frightfully vulnerable scene, classmates confront her in the shower for being “loose” while they and she are naked.

It’s a fittingly staged scene because in “Happening,” there’s no intimacy or pleasure for Anne’s body. It’s a battleground. When she’s asked for her reading of Louis Aragon’s “Elsa at Her Mirror,” Anne describes the poem’s war references. And she, too, is in a kind of war, with seemingly no one on her side, desperate for help — or at least for some honesty. Anne grows increasingly isolated but also hardened and defiant. Diwan films her clinical encounters at length and, in a film where no one wants to say the truth out loud, “Happening” culminates in Anne holding back screams of pain because the walls are too thin.

“Happening,” an IFC Films release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for disturbing material/images, sexual content and graphic nudity. In French with subtitles. Running time: 100 minutes. Three stars out of four.

___

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


              This image released by IFC Films shows Anamaria Vartolomei, left, and Sandrine Bonnaire in a scene from "Happening." (IFC Films via AP)
            
              This image released by IFC Films shows Anamaria Vartolomei in a scene from "Happening." (IFC Films via AP)
            
              This image released by IFC Films shows Anamaria Vartolomei in a scene from "Happening." (IFC Films via AP)

AP

(Facebook Photo/City of San Luis, Arizona)...
Associated Press

San Luis authorities receive complaints about 911 calls going across border

Authorities in San Luis say they are receiving more complaints about 911 calls mistakenly going across the border.
6 days ago
(Pexels Photo)...
Associated Press

Daylight saving time begins in most of US this weekend

No time change is observed in Hawaii, most of Arizona, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Marianas.
14 days ago
Mexican army soldiers prepare a search mission for four U.S. citizens kidnapped by gunmen in Matamo...
Associated Press

How the 4 abducted Americans in Mexico were located

The anonymous tip that led Mexican authorities to a remote shack where four abducted Americans were held described armed men and blindfolds.
14 days ago
Tom Brundy points to a newly built irrigation canal on one of the fields at his farm Tuesday, Feb. ...
Associated Press

Southwest farmers reluctant to idle farmland to save water

There is a growing sense that fallowing will have to be part of the solution to the increasingly desperate drought in the West.
21 days ago
A young bison calf stands in a pond with its herd at Bull Hollow, Okla., on Sept. 27, 2022. The cal...
Associated Press

US aims to restore bison herds to Native American lands after near extinction

U.S. officials will work to restore more large bison herds to Native American lands under a Friday order from Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.
21 days ago
Children play in a dried riverbed in Flassans-sur-Issole, southern France, Wednesday, March 1, 2023...
Associated Press

Italy, France confront 2nd year of western Europe drought

ROME (AP) — Bracing for Italy’s second consecutive year of drought for the first time in decades, Premier Giorgia Meloni huddled with ministers Wednesday to start mapping out an action plan Wednesday, joining France and other nations in western Europe grappling with scant winter rain and snow. Meloni and her ministers decided to appoint an […]
23 days ago

Sponsored Articles

(Pexels Photo)...

Sports gambling can be fun for adults, but it’s a dangerous game for children

While adults may find that sports gambling is a way to enhance the experience with more than just fandom on the line, it can be a dangerous proposition if children get involved in the activity.
...
Quantum Fiber

How high-speed fiber internet edges out cable for everyday use

In a world where technology drives so much of our daily lives, a lack of high-speed internet can be a major issue.
(Desert Institute for Spine Care photo)...
DESERT INSTITUTE FOR SPINE CARE

Why DISC is world renowned for back and neck pain treatments

Fifty percent of Americans and 90% of people at least 50 years old have some level of degenerative disc disease.
Review: In ‘Happening,’ a riveting abortion drama