Happy End

After Leedvermaak (1989) and Qui Vive (2001), Happy End is the final instalment of Judith Herzberg and Frans Weisz' trilogy, with the same actors playing the leading roles again. It is 1995. If at the time the motto was 'How to live?', in this drama, that at times threatens to become a tragicomedy, everything revolves around the question 'How to die?' The Jewish family, still tormented by the war, gathers around old Simon's sickbed. His wife Ada, who passed away fifteen years ago, looks on and sees how everybody is powerless and harbouring their own secrets. 'Nothing ever passes by', son-in-law Nico thinks, the doctor who cannot stand dying people. Daughter Lea is afraid that after Simon's death the family will fall apart, like beads from a string. And Simon himself? He smiles when he hears the sounds of revelry breeze in. The girl next door celebrates her birthday in spite of everything. Perhaps you have to be young, like his grandson Isaac, to know without hesitation what is right and just and to be able to carefully but resolutely break the spell.