There is a more interesting story lurking within Jan-Eric Mack’s “A Happy Family” than the one actually being told. At times, the Swiss filmmaker teases the possibility that the conventional narrative shown thus far might break into a bold, daring twist. It’s a promise unfulfilled, however, and those glimpses of something thornier and more daring ultimately come to seem like signs of a filmmaker not in total control of his argument. The first Swiss film to ever play in the Crystal Globe competition of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, “A Happy Family” is a custody drama that turns out to be more interested in the “drama” part of the phrase, at the expense of plausibility.
Still, Anna Schinz impresses from the get-go as Nicole “Niki” Hofer, a single mother of two already struggling to satisfy child protection services in the film’s opening scene. DP Yunus Roy Imer previously shot “System Crasher”, Nora Fingscheidt’s explosive portrait of a difficult child navigating the foster system, and the same naturalism and attention to the slightest mood shifts is on display here. But what Mack actually aims to show through this aesthetic is less clear.
It is obvious in the scene that Niki loves her children, but it is odd that she is making them eat cereal without milk in front of the case worker who is observing them that morning. Perhaps the visit was unannounced; even so, Niki’s lack of preparation remains rather confusing when we learn in the next scene that she’s had several visits from social services already. This time around, she is even told that her youngest is getting sick and struggling to focus at school due to malnutrition. The stakes are already high.
