Le bonheur des uns… (2020)

Directed by: Daniel Cohen | 104 minutes | comedy | Actors: Bérénice Bejo, Vincent Cassel, François Damiens, Florence Foresti, Daniel Cohen, Keren-Ann Zajtelbach, Owen Tannou, Romain Cottard, Alice Carel, Bruno Gouery, Constance Labbé, François-Eric Gendron, Angelina Wismes, Anne-Gaëlle Jourdain, Laurent Mentec, Caroline Gay

Léa (Bérénice Bejo) is married to the dominant Marc (Vincent Cassel) and works in a women’s fashion store in Paris. Léa is good at her job and even has a chance at a promotion, but she doesn’t enjoy the job much. She would much rather write books. Her best friend Karine (Florence Foresti), works for a successful advertising agency and is married to the timid Francis (François Damiens), with whom she has two children. One evening, when the four friends are going out for dinner, as usual, Léa says that she is writing a novel. The announcement immediately upsets the balance within the group. Suddenly the others also feel the urge to be creative, which only increases when Léa manages to close a profitable book deal shortly afterwards. She is soon absorbed into the literary world and experiences great success. However, her friends don’t like this revolution.

‘Le bonheur des uns…’ is the film adaptation of director Daniel Cohen’s own play ‘L’Ile flottante.’ The premise of the film—four friends who are under pressure because of one of them’s writing success—could be quite interesting. For example, you could show how the friends have been incorporated as characters in Léa’s book, leading to mutual discussions about the perception they have of each other. Or you could have Léa put a long-kept secret in the book; something that could harm her husband Marc. There are all kinds of possibilities. Only very little is done with this fact.

A large part of the playing time of ‘Le bonheur des uns…’ is spent on the almost always negative expressions of Marc, Karine and Francis. If your best friend (or in Marc’s case, wife) tells you she’s following her dream of writing a novel and then succeeds, you’d be happy for her, wouldn’t you? In the case of these three characters, however, that’s a big ‘no’. They do not allow the light in Léa’s eyes. Why? That is never exactly clear. This is not only frustrating because of the lack of clarity behind this, but also because of the fact that Bérénice Bejo as Léa is the only balanced and sympathetic character. Bejo delivers a solid acting performance. However, this cannot be said of her fellow actors.

Vincent Cassel is very unpleasant as Marc, Léa’s selfish and coercive husband. He’s the stereotypical screaming businessman. His work always comes first and he has little eye for Léa and her aspirations. He would rather watch a movie on TV than read her book. Cassel often plays unsympathetic characters, but here his character has virtually no substance. You know nothing about him and as a result you would rather see him disappear from the screen. This is also the case with Karine, supposedly Léa’s best friend, who starts a hate campaign against her out of inexplicable jealousy. Instead of supporting her friend with her creative ambitions, she constantly makes fun of Léa and starts writing her own novel out of spite. Her husband, Francis, also treats them with little respect. He is often the target of her belittling, which he continues to take in silence. Yet Francis himself is not a saint either, as at times he likewise shows his distaste for Léa. What motivation does Francis have? No. His feelings are equally, if not more meaningless than those of Marc and Karine.

For a film that preaches to be about the literary world, a world driven by inspiration, passion and enrichment, ‘Le bonheur des uns…’ is careless and uninspired. Daniel Cohen seems to conflict here with exactly what he wants to convey to his viewers and loses far too much of the playing time to his insufferable characters. That was his biggest mistake. Léa arouses our sympathy, driven by her dreams, but this argument cannot be made for the other three characters. These are not people you want to spend time with, whether on the big screen or in real life.