Anamaria Vartolomei, Kacey Mottet Klein, Sandrine Bonnaire, Louise Orry-Diquero
Adapted from celebrated French writer Annie Ernaux’s short, stark memoir of the same name, Audrey Diwan’s devastating second feature Happening – winner of the Golden Lion at Venice 2021 – follows a young woman in ’60s France as she tries to terminate a pregnancy.
1963, Angoulême: A gifted, ambitious, working-class university student, Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei) is horrified to find herself pregnant. Abortion is still illegal in France, and every door potentially available to her is closed. As her final exams approach and her pregnancy progresses, she is forced to confront the horrifying shame and danger of an illegal abortion, even if she must risk prison, and her life, to do so.
Styling Anne’s quest as a taut but sober thriller, Diwan’s poised, potent film is reminiscent of Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s Lingui, the Sacred Bonds and other empathetic but tough-minded art-house studies of women attempting to navigate abortion illegality (or, as with recent rulings in Poland and by some US state legislatures, abortion access restricted to the point of near impossibility). Vartolomei is brilliant as Anne, tightly framed by cinematographer Laurent Tangy as she falls into increasing despair; offered only lukewarm support by her peers (clarifying the complete toxicity of unmarried pregnancy at the time) and finally alone as she risks everything for her physical and intellectual freedom. Bringing its still repressive early ’60s, pre-Pill era vividly to life, Happening marks Diwan out as a vital new talent.