Film Review: Everything Went Fine
Images courtesy of Sharmill Films.
“You know… he’s a bad father. But I love him.” Emmanuelle Bernheim is in a bizarre, emotionally upending situation. Her father André, to whom she has never been able to say no, is firmly determined to die, and wants her help. Everything Went Fine – acclaimed director François Ozon’s follow-up to 2020’s sensual queer romance Summer of 85 – opens with her and her sister Pascale rushing to his hospitalised bedside, finding him weak and miserable. As the story develops, the sisters stay with him as he makes steps toward recovery – the film is full of intertitles tracking the passage of time from month to month – until a week after his admittance to the ICU, when André says quietly to his “Manue” (a nickname only he calls her): “I want you to help me end it”.
André saying this to one daughter, and not the other, is no mistake. Ozon includes multiple flashbacks to show his deficiencies as a father – this is far from the first time he’s pit his daughters against one another, and his trysts with men in lieu of attending to his wife and children are also depicted as an open wound in the Bernheim family dynamic.
One of the film’s strongest elements is how it characterises the relationship between the sisters – they exhibit such familiarity, and take constant comfort in each other despite the distressing situation and occasional mutual conflict. Pascale, for her part, always gets up and runs away whenever “Switzerland” is mentioned – at André’s urging, Emmanuelle gets in touch with an organisation in Bern called The Right To Die With Dignity, who can help them get around French law’s total prohibition of assisted suicide. He doggedly brings up the “Switzerland” topic every time she visits him, and only seems truly happy when the planning of his assisted suicide is moving forward – the film treats his single-minded resolve as simultaneously righteous and upsetting.
André Dussollier, who shares a first name with his character, is giving a genuinely note-perfect performance. Not only is he so believable and absorbing that you, ahem, truly forget you’re watching an actor – he also has to spend the film with the facial droop of a stroke victim. It’s wonderful work that’s easy to take for granted – the film does not work without him.
But ultimately, Everything Went Fine is not about André’s suffering, not really – it’s Emmanuelle whose journey is always centred. Ozon distinguishes the film against other ‘Issue Movies’, by having it be something else entirely. This is a story not about the need for legislation on euthanasia, but about the human, emotional experience of having deep ties to someone who wants to bring their life to an end. Emmanuelle has such overwhelming, extensive baggage with her father, and the experience of organising and being there for process of his assisted suicide is shown to be surreal and destabilising. It’s a smart, engrossing premise for a drama – not a defining work for Ozon, but further proof that he is one of the most impressive, engaging directors in the French cinema landscape.
Everything Went Fine is screening in cinemas nationally from Thursday May 19th. For tickets and more info, click here.