• "Everything went well" is inspired by an autobiographical novel by Emmanuel Bernheim.

  • The novelist described how she and her sister helped their father to travel to Switzerland to perform assisted suicide.

  • Sophie Marceau and Géraldine Pailhas surround André Dussollier who embodies the dad diminished after a stroke.

"If you want to be his friend, help him."

Even when it comes to helping his father die? 

Everything went well

from François Ozon adapts Emmanuel Bernheim's book where the novelist told how her sister and she supported their father, suffering from an incurable disease, in his desire to go to Switzerland to end it.

This beautiful film presented at the Cannes Film Festival manages not to be overwhelming despite its painful subject.

“Emmanuèle Bernheim was my friend, explains François Ozon to

20 Minutes

.

I wanted us to find his life force in the film.

This is why it was absolutely necessary that the treatment remains luminous.

"

Sophie Marceau plays the novelist who collaborated as a screenwriter with the filmmaker for

Swimming Pool

(2003),

5X2

(2004) and

Ricky

(2009).

Between André Dussollier as a tyrannical daddy half paralyzed after a stroke and Geraldine Pailhas in the role of her sister, the actress radiates the film paying a vibrant tribute to the writer who died of cancer in 2017.

A family affair

“What interested me in this true story is not only the theme of assisted suicide, explains François Ozon. Above all, I tell a love story between a father who is not always comfortable and his daughters who have to deal with his character. Humor often points its nose in their reports because the fact of being physically diminished does not prevent this man from being able to be charming and authoritarian or even in absolute bad faith. He goes so far as to claim that his daughters want to get rid of him in front of a family member shocked by euthanasia.

There are also touching moments when the heroine keeps a sandwich with the mark of her father's teeth or during the father's farewell, who did not hide his homosexuality, to her last lover embodied by the always impeccable Grégory Gabebois.

"The book was also strong of these changes of tone that I wanted to transmit to the film, specifies the director.

What the father undertakes is not sad: it is a choice he makes freely.

So the story clearly takes a stand in his favor with as much vigor as modesty.

The end almost has the air of suspense as the spectator hopes that he will achieve his ends.

Invite to debate

"I would like the spectator to leave the room wondering about life, death and what he would do if he were in the place of the characters," insists the director.

It is one of the great qualities of

Everything went well

that it invites debate without ever falling into the slightest melodramatic effect.

Movie theater

Cannes Film Festival: François Ozon climbs the stairs with an ode to life, "Everything went well"

Movie theater

"Fiction has a political power that I had not thought of", estimates François Ozon

  • Cannes film festival

  • Francois Ozon

  • Sophie Marceau

  • Movie theater