the secret life of happy people (la vie secrète des gens heureux) 2006 french bcbc

the secret life of happy people (la vie secrète des gens heureux) 2006 region free dvd5 french bcbc



The Secret Life of Happy People (French: La vie secrète des gens heureux) is a 2006 Canadian comedy-drama film written and directed by Stéphane Lapointe.

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Plot

Thomas Dufresne (Paquet) is the black sheep of his bourgeois family. One day, he meets a free-spirited waitress named Audrey (Catherine Deléan) who changes his life. Thomas eventually finds out the truth behind their seemingly innocent encounter, which may change his family forever.



Recognition

2007 Genie Award for Best Achievement in Direction - Stéphane Lapointe - Nominated

2007 Genie Award for Best Achievement in Music - Original Score - Pierre Desrochers - Nominated

2007 Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role - Marie Gignac - Nominated

2007 Genie Award for Best Original Screenplay - Stéphane Lapointe - Nominated

2007 Jutra Award for Best Film - Stéphane Lapointe - Won (tied with Julia Kwan for Eve and the Fire Horse)



Cast

Gilbert Sicotte, Marc Paquet, Catherine de Léan, Marie Gignac, Gilles Renaud, Anne Dorval, Émilie Dionne, Emily Shelton, Yanick Fournier, Gabriel Arcand, David Buyle, Marcel Girard, Marc Béland, France Labonté, Benoît Rousseau



Review: ‘The Secret Life of Happy People’

September 19, 2006

Quebecois TV writer-director Stephane Lapointe’s debut feature boasts a dynamite title — “The Secret Life of Happy People” — and an intriguing premise — an ugly duckling, terminally klutzy, underachieving son born into the perfect bourgeois family. Lapointe displays a light touch with comedy, as thesps nimbly dance the tightrope between character and caricature. When pic spirals into darker waters, however, the transition feels overly schematic, wavering uncertainly between tragedy and bathos. Still, engaging cast, goosed by knockout newcomer Catherine de Lean’s quirky femme fatale, could spell healthy B.O. for francophone entry which bowed Sept. 8 in Canada after closing Montreal fest.



Thomas (Marc Paquet) is ruefully aware of his inadequacies. While his older sister practices medicine in London, his father Bernard (Gilbert Sicotte) runs a highly successful food company, and his mother Solange (Marie Gignac) is a teacher who sidelines as a TV quiz show champ, the 25-year-old Thomas is still struggling to make the grade as an architecture student.



Then a seemingly chance encounter with dazzling, free-spirited waitress Audrey (De Lean) injects him with confidence. Soon Thomas’ professors are heaping praise on his newly inventive architectural designs and muse Audrey is cozily welcomed into the fold by Thomas’ beaming parents.



But Audrey is full of surprises, not the least of them a little daughter named Charlotte (Mariane Lalumiere). Though she claims to be madly attracted to Thomas, she avoids his advances.



As it turns out, Audrey has been hired by Thomas’ parents to improve his academic performance, and has little interest in the clueless dork. Instead, she is eyeing dad Bernard. Finally, the big guy falls, hard.



The family starts visibly unraveling. Director Lapointe, however, cannot seem to decide whether to delight in the downfall of a complacent bourgeois couple whose desire to manipulate everyone backfires on them or to pity the unsuspecting nuclear family derailed by libidinous and class forces that it never before acknowledged.



While cinema delights in such tonal ambiguities, the switchover from nuanced comedy to overblown melodrama occurs so precipitously and so inexorably that it becomes predictable.



At the same time, Lapointe sends mixed stylistic messages: His run-of-the-mill climactic moments are unfortunately played straight, validating the seriousness too much for parody — while the characters have become too caricatured for empathy.



Thesping is strong throughout. Paquet’s Thomas projects a wry, nerdish amiability that maintains audience sympathy. As Bernard, Sicotte’s transformation from expansive moral family man to obsessed middle-aged buffoon encompasses a gallery of comic turns that Lapointe’s generally witty script happily facilitates. As the catalyst to the dynasty’s downfall, De Lean sparkles with mischievous anarchic energy.