''A Happy Man'' (french: Le Bonheur de Pierre) is a 2009 Canadian-French comedy-drama directed by

Robert Ménard Robert Ménard (born 6 July 1953) is a French far-right politician, currently serving as Mayor of Béziers. Formerly a journalist, he was a co-founder of the Paris-based international non-governmental organisation Reporters Without Borders, act ...

. It was entered into several

film festival A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upo ...

s including the

Rhode Island International Film Festival Flickers' Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF) takes place every year in Providence and Newport, Rhode Island as well as satellite locations throughout the state. History Started in 1997, the Festival is produced by Flickers, the ...

. Moreover, it was chosen Best Foreign Film at the New York Independent Film Festival in 2009. The film is also known as A Happy Man.

Plot

French professor Pierre Martin is a widower who lives with his single daughter Catherine. When his aunt Jeanne dies she bequeathers him her

guest house A guest house (also guesthouse) is a kind of lodging. In some parts of the world (such as the Caribbean), guest houses are a type of inexpensive hotel-like lodging. In others, it is a private home that has been converted for the exclusive use ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

on condition he lives there for a minimum of time. He loves to comply because he has fond childhood memories of this place. In order to make his daughter Catherine accompany him he tells her a great deal of money was also part of Jeanne's heritage. So both of them hurry to the rural little town Sainte Simone du Nord in Canada. The mayor Michel Dolbec knows Jeanne's house will become property of their community if the two Martins don't hold out long enough. He sabotages them several times but they stay. Eventually Pierre Martin and Michel Dolbec become friends after all.

Cast

Reception

The film received mixed reviews. It was praised as a "touching politically incorrect comedy". Yet its

narrativity Narrativity is the extent to which a media tells a story, which is a storyteller's account of an event or a sequence of events leading to a transition from an initial state to a later state or outcome. There are four theoretical foundations of narra ...

been blamed for a lack of rigour. The film has a user rating of 5.2 due to mixed critic reviews on

IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

DVD release

NTSC The first American standard for analog television broadcast was developed by National Television System Committee (NTSC)National Television System Committee (1951–1953), Report and Reports of Panel No. 11, 11-A, 12–19, with Some supplement ...

version of Le Bonheur de Pierre has been released on DVD in winter 2009.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Happy Man, A 2009 films Films directed by Robert Ménard Canadian comedy-drama films French comedy-drama films French-language Canadian films 2000s Canadian films 2000s French films