'Happening' movie is a grim look at abortion rights in the past. Maybe the future

In the wake of the leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion that seems to spell doom for Roe v. Wade, “The Handmaid’s Tale” is often referenced.

It’s easy to see why — a patriarchal society in a near-future dystopia rolls back women’s rights until they have none. The Supreme Court’s impending decision is just one reason to think of it as a glimpse into a scary future.

“Happening,” Audrey Diwan’s stunning film, is scarier.

It involves a look into the past — France in 1963 — that also portends an easy-to-imagine future. Thus, it’s one grounded in reality (it’s based on Annie Ernaux’s autobiographical novel). It’s a great movie, buoyed by an outstanding performance by Anamaria Vartolomei. She plays Anne Duchesne, a 23-year-old university literature student. She’s smart, involved, independent. She wants to be a teacher, maybe a writer.

She’s also pregnant.

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Abortion wasn't legal in France until 1975

She doesn’t want to be. She refers at one point to pregnancy as the disease that affects only women and turns them into housewives. If she has the baby she can forget about a career, a point that a talk with a woman who works in a factory drives home.

Anne wants an abortion. But that’s illegal in France (it didn’t become legal there until 1975). Doctors refuse her — one is vaguely understanding, if ineffectual, while another is openly contemptuous and ultimately duplicitous.

Their behavior is rooted in fear. And why not? They could be imprisoned for helping Anne terminate her pregnancy. Anne’s friends behave similarly, horrified at the mere mention of becoming pregnant. (Anne keeps it from them as long as she can.)

Diwan maximizes the tension, ticking the weeks off as Anne searches for help. Her grades suffer, as do her friendships and her relationship with her mother. Her options are shrinking and time is running out.

Desperate situations lead to desperate decisions. The only abortions available are illegal, risky both legally and medically, with access found in whispers and passed notes and coded identity. Diwan is unsparing in her depiction of all this — several scenes are extremely difficult to watch but demand to be seen. It’s tough, and it’s scary.

And even if you manage to terminate a pregnancy, that may not be the end.

“I didn’t end up in a hospital,” one woman tells Anne. “It’s the lottery there. If you’re lucky they label it a miscarriage. But if some bastard doctor writes ‘abortion’ and you don’t die, you end up in prison.”

This film was made long before the Supreme Court leak, of course. It played at the Venice Film Festival in 2021, where it won the Golden Lion as best film. It works as a historical document, as a reminder of the way things were.

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After the Supreme Court leak, 'Happening' hits close to home

It also works as a look at the way things might be — the way some want it to be.

And it also works as a movie. Diwan shoots it in such a way — tight shots, long takes, intimate staging — that we see and feel Anne’s fear and frustration.

Vartolomei’s performance is amazing. The way her face registers everything she endures, from grim determination to frustration to mental and physical agony, seems genuine, authentic. Which makes it all the more harrowing. She and Diwan don’t strive to make Anne heroic. She is simply a young woman doing everything she can to exercise some control over her life and her future.

Which, in this circumstance — and who knows what circumstances may come — may be heroic after all.

'Happening' 4.5 stars

Great ★★★★★ Good ★★★★

Fair ★★★ Bad ★★ Bomb ★

Director: Audrey Diwan.

Cast: Anamaria Vartolomei, Kacey Mottet Klein, Luana Bajrami.

Rating: R for disturbing material/images, sexual content and graphic nudity.

Note: In theaters May 13.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 'Happening' movie is a grim, timely abortion drama