Beyond the Happy Ending

Happiness (and the question of how to define, measure and facilitate it) has become a key theme in political, economic and social discourses in recent decades in France and elsewhere, yet research on happiness in French culture and film has been limited. Given that happiness is clearly gendered, this book looks critically at the ways in which contemporary French womens writing and film give voice to and critique conceptions of happiness. Analysing French and francophone womens writing (film (including Nina Bouraoui, Hlne Cixous, Annie Ernaux Camille Laurens, Lela Slimani, Delphine de Vigan) and film (including Claire Denis, Cline Sciamma and Agns Varda), I focus on five main areas: images of happiness in consumer and Internet culture; happiness and intimacy in the family and the home; queering happiness; migrated happiness and happiness and ageing. Whilst the happiness turn is problematic, the desire for happiness, however fraught, matters and I show how representations of happiness in contemporary French womens writing and film offer alternative conceptions of happiness that enable us to rethink happiness in more critical, diverse and inclusive terms.