After running and politics, Quebec filmmaker Chloé Robichaud is interested in symphonic music and signs her most personal and accomplished film. In Happy Days, Sarah’s filmmaker prefers racing and Pays reconnects, 10 years later, with Sophie Desmarais, the actress in her first feature film, presented in the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013.
Sophie Desmarais is moving in the role of Emma, a young conductor at a crossroads, who aspires to a prestigious position. Emma is on the rise professionally, navigating the unpredictable ups and downs that come with the instability of an early career. His sentimental life, and especially his family life, is not looking good either.
In the role of Emma’s father and agent, Patrick, Sylvain Marcel is very credible as an iron-fisted bulldozer in a velvet glove who imposes, sometimes unconsciously, his aspirations on his daughter. Maude Guérin is just as accurate in the nuance of the dismay and anger of the mother stuck between the ambitions of her impresario husband and her prodigy daughter.
Emma, Chloé Robichaud’s alter ego, gradually realizes the extent of the toxic relationship she has with her demanding and never satisfied father. We recognize in Patrick the archetype of parents so obsessed with the success of their talented children, in the world of arts and sport, that they are ready to jeopardize their relationship with them.
Emma also experiences a complex romantic relationship with Naëlle, a cellist in the orchestra she directs, mother of a young boy, who has just separated from his father. Emma is in a hurry to make their relationship official. Naëlle tries to make him understand that family and cultural issues also come into play.
Happy Days deals as much with family, those who are chosen and those who are imposed, as with music, which of course has a special place in Chloé Robichaud’s screenplay. In three stages and three works that she conducts – by Mozart, Schönberg and Mahler – we follow Emma’s progression, first enmeshed in the shackles of convention, then freeing herself from the weight of expectations and doubt.
We recognize several musicians from the Orchester Métropolitain on the screen. Its chef and artistic director Yannick Nézet-Séguin acted as artistic and technical advisor on the film. We also recognize her enveloping style, particularly in rehearsal, thanks to the character of Emma’s mentor, played with finesse by Vincent Leclerc. A mentor who, in a pivotal scene of the film, invites the perfectionist that Emma is to let go of her crazy self and give in to her passion for music.
Subtle, Happy Days avoids the trap of Manichaeism in the illustration of the toxic relationship between the daughter and the father. I even thought for a moment that Chloé Robichaud would resist the temptation to explain why Patrick acts the way he acts with Emma. The author-filmmaker ends up (unfortunately) giving in. No doubt to better nourish a final sequence which gives way to flashbacks while Emma conducts the adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth.
The fact remains that by betting on staying as close as possible to the actors, and in particular to Sophie Desmarais, thanks to close-ups or a hand-held camera, Chloé Robichaud immerses herself in emotion. We spy on his actions. We have the impression of being in his head, measuring his hopes and disappointments, guessing his performance anxiety. To dive with Emma into what she controls, tries to control, and cannot control. This is what makes Happy Days a cinematic object as free as it is moving.
