Happening review – visceral abortion drama rooted in painful realism

What is a horror film nowadays, exactly? Adapted from Annie Ernaux’s semi-autobiographical novel, Happening will have you questioning everything you know about the borders of the genre. It takes place in 1963 but it could have been set yesterday; a timely portrait of young womanhood that is all too harrowingly real, as writer-director Audrey Diwan navigates the plight of an unwanted pregnancy with unflinching cellular detail.

Anamaria Vartolomei is unquantifiably marvellous as Anne Duchesne, a young and committed literature student living in Angoulême, France when an unexpected pregnancy strikes. Her pale complexion is the same ghostly white as the hospital bed she lies upon when a doctor informs her that unsparing laws prevent anyone seeking out methods to terminate a pregnancy, let alone follow through with an abortion.

Anne’s final exams are approaching fast, her bump is growing noticeable, and her options are waning. Desperate, terrified and confined to a boxy aspect ratio, the frame closes in on Anne as though to match the new pressures on her body. Diwan grants Happening one full body mirror shot in which this young woman gazes at her reflection, camera lingering as her eyes fall upon her uterus with silent scrutiny, fingertips brushing over skin that no longer feels like her own.

The superb talent that is Luàna Bajrami – who starred in Portrait of a Lady on Fire and her own directorial debut The Hill Where Lionesses Roar – plays Hélène, a quiet force at Anne’s side, while the boisterous Bridget (Louise Orry-Diquéro) suggest that getting pregnant would be “the end of the world.” Yet, unbeknownst to her friend, a five-week pregnant Anne sits stewing in her own alienation.

As an unempathetic milieu lumps shame upon Anne, Vartolomei’s performance remains upright and taut. She handles this character with restrained, jaw-clenching tenacity as a constant sense of urgency is drawn out to devastating degree. Uncompromisingly visualising this strained predicament with such brutal, unfiltered sincerity, pertinent flashes of hope appear as subtle as Isabelle Pannetier’s costume design, where small trinkets are like dustings of gold against Anne’s skin, the azure blue hues of her outfits accentuating the ocean of worry in her eyes.

Pausing the film intermittently with title cards that show how much time has passed only serves to increase the gruelling tension of Anne’s ticking clock. Vartolomei implements a handheld camera that remains sickeningly close to its subject, following Anne from family home with her mother (Sandrine Bonnaire) to school dorm to lecture hall, hope diminishing. And all the time, it's impossible to not grimace as Anne is poked and prodded with escalating affliction.

There are moments when it becomes unbearable to watch the lengths Anne will go to in order to terminate her pregnancy, but that is entirely the point. With an emotionally turbulent and harrowingly brutal final act, soundtracked to the haunting plucking of a sharp violin and Anne’s harried breathlessness, Happening is a past-set tale that feels achingly present.

Happening was screened as part of the Sundance Film Festival 2022. It is released in UK cinemas on April 22.