Happening

Director: Audrey Diwan

2021 / 100min / DCP

Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei), a gifted student at university in Angoulême, finds her dreams of becoming a writer and the possibility of leaving her stultifying village background behind in grave danger when she discovers herself pregnant—for the year is 1963, and abortion is still illegal in France. Diwan’s empathetic, visceral, and often harrowing adaptation of the memoir by Annie Ernaux, winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival, follows Anne as, her desperation increasing with each passing week, she battles to hang on to a future in danger of slipping away. “Urgently of the moment… Diwan engages history, the world, and the brutal cost of paternalism.” —Manohla Dargis, The New York Times