'Happy End' laced with implied social critique

“Happy End” - ★★ ½

In ways both thematic and circumstantial, Michael Haneke's “Happy End” suggests a sequel of sorts to the Austrian filmmaker's “Amour.” Like that Oscar-nominated 2012 film, which explored the gray area between coldblooded murder and assisted suicide, Haneke's latest effort also stars Jean-Louis Trintignant, once again in the role of an elderly man named Georges.

Like his character in “Amour,” this Georges, as we gradually learn, has also helped his infirm wife shuffle off this mortal coil, in an act of tenderness that is fraught with troubling moral implications. Now, as he himself becomes increasingly senile, the widower starts looking for someone to help him die. As in the earlier tale, Georges has a daughter played by Isabelle Huppert (although her character here is named Anne, not Eva). The similarities, however, end there.

This new Georges eventually finds a kindred spirit — if not an enabler — in his granddaughter Eve (Fantine Harduin), a 13-year-old sociopath who, as the film gets underway, has already put one character in a coma via an overdose of prescription medicine. If you find yourself confused about who's who just reading this review, you'll be lost in the movie. Relationships between characters are often frustratingly ambiguous; an organizational chart is needed to figure out how everybody connects. That's seemingly by design: The film opens with voyeuristic, Facebook Live-style videos — shot by an anonymous someone we only later find out is Eve — as, for example, she poisons her pet hamster.

Haneke is nothing if not playful, but only in the sense that a cat “plays” with a mouse before killing it. His work often betrays a distinctly cruel disregard for audience comfort, bordering, at times, on sadism. “Happy End,” for its part, signals a return to form for the director, who here makes a stark departure from the sweet tone of “Amour” in favor of the vinegary outlook on life manifested in such films as “Funny Games,” his 2007 horror movie about violent home invaders.

Here, it's the child who's the monster, although Haneke finds bad behavior everywhere. There's an implicit social critique here, as there often is in Haneke's work. Life is ugly and unfair and — for those who have more money than sense — sometimes lasts longer than is healthy. Who wouldn't do whatever it takes, this bitter parable asks, to escape?

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Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Isabelle Huppert, Fantine Harduin, Franz Rogowski

Directed by: Michael Haneke

Other: A Sony Pictures Classics. Rated R for sexual situations, language, thematic material and violence. At Chicago's Music Box Theatre. In French with subtitles. 107 minutes