Tout s’est bien passé

Successful, rich, and well-connected, 85-year-old André (the great André Dussollier) suffers a stroke. Although not as badly off as many who’ve endured the same affliction, the stubborn, unreconstructed André decides that enough is enough—he demands that his favourite daughter, Emmanuelle (Sophie Marceau) help him in arranging for an assisted suicide in a Swiss clinic. Around this scenario, director François Ozon weaves a tightly knotted and often very cuttingly funny family drama about the ties that bind—as well as those that don’t bind at all—as family secrets and past slights rise to the surface. A wonderful work!

‘François Ozon has brought a tremendous understated confidence and artistry to this very affecting film about euthanasia and assisted dying. There is a robust unsentimentality here… Another type of drama would put the issue-led handwringing at the centre of things. Not this film. It is just the hinge on which the family drama turns, and the performances from Dussollier and Marceau are quietly outstanding.’—Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian