Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
France, 1963. Anne is a bright young student with a promising future ahead of her. But when she falls pregnant, she sees the opportunity to finish her studies and escape the constraints of her social background disappearing. With her final exams fast approaching and her belly growing, Anne resolves to act, even if she has to confront shame and pain, even if she must risk prison to do so.
Happening is a harrowing, precisely controlled drama. Vartolomei's central performance is viscerally committed and carries enormous weight, while Diwan's direction keeps the camera intimately close, creating an almost unbearable tension through restraint. The 4:3 aspect ratio and handheld intimacy are purposeful and effective cinematographic choices. The plot is rigorous and unflinching, tracking Anne's isolation and desperation with documentary-like precision. Novelty scores lower because the film, while excellently executed, belongs to a well-established tradition of women's bodily autonomy dramas — it perfects rather than reinvents, and Vera Drake and 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days cover adjacent ground with similarly strong craft. The ending, while tonally appropriate and restrained, is abrupt enough that it feels slightly incomplete as a dramatic resolution.