Overview
A tale of love and longing set against the idyllic backdrop of the countryside.
Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Measured
- Intensity
- Strong
- Complexity
- Layered
- Violence
- Mild
- sunlit
- idyllic
- subversive
- arthouse film night
- french cinema retrospective
What critics said
Critics broadly regard the film as a formally radiant yet emotionally radical and deeply unsettling examination of love, happiness, and infidelity.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
The film repeatedly presents family life, countryside, flowers, and bright colors in an idyllic register while François's affair produces increasingly unsettling implications.
François frames his affair as an expansion of happiness while Thérèse bears the consequences within the marriage and family structure.
François's calm conviction that he can love both women unsettles familiar assumptions about romance, fidelity, and responsibility.
The apparently harmonious household and routine family scenes acquire a threatening quality as the extramarital relationship develops.
Films like Happiness, and why
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
sunlit domestic drama that turns an apparently idyllic marriage into a subversive examination of infidelity and gendered emotional power
Jules and Jim
french new wave-adjacent romantic drama using stylized color and everyday relationships to expose emotional contradiction
La Collectionneuse
formally controlled relationship drama pairing social observation with unsettling moral ambiguity beneath an attractive surface
A Woman Under the Influence
feminist-inflected domestic drama that interrogates marriage, desire, and the unequal consequences of personal freedom
Movie Details
- Director
- Agnès Varda
- Release Date
- 1965-02-10
- Runtime
- 80 min
- Rating
- 7.5 / 10 (319)
Cast
- Jean-Claude Drouot
- Claire Drouot
- Olivier Drouot
- Sandrine Drouot
- Marie-France Boyer
- Marcelle Faure-Bertin
- Manon Lanclos
- Sylvia Saurel
- Marc Eyraud
- Christian Riehl
Where to watch in United States
- Streaming
- HBO Max Amazon Channel, Criterion Channel, HBO Max
- Rent
- Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Fandango At Home
- Buy
- Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Fandango At Home
Streaming options come from TMDB and change over time.
Common questions
- What is Happiness about?
- Agnès Varda transforms a radiant family idyll into a devastatingly subversive meditation on infidelity, entitlement, and the cost of private happiness.
- What is Happiness like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of Happiness as measured, its intensity as strong and its storytelling as layered.
- Is Happiness violent?
- Only mildly. Ember rates the violence in Happiness as mild.
- What did critics think of Happiness?
- Critics broadly regard the film as a formally radiant yet emotionally radical and deeply unsettling examination of love, happiness, and infidelity.
- Which films are like Happiness?
- Films with a similar feel include The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Jules and Jim, La Collectionneuse, and A Woman Under the Influence.
- How long is Happiness?
- Happiness runs 80 minutes.
- Where can I watch Happiness?
- In United States, Happiness streams on HBO Max Amazon Channel, Criterion Channel, HBO Max.
