Film Review: Everything Went Fine is an absorbing story of grief, pain and guilt 

Everything Went Fine - in cinemas and on Curzon Home Cinema 17th June Picture: Carole Bethuel/Mandarin Production-Foz for declan burke caroline delaney

*****

Adapted from a memoir by Emmanuèle Bernheim, Everything Went Fine (15A) stars Sophie Marceau as the Parisian novelist Emmanuèle Bernheim, whose quietly civilised life is shattered when her father, André (André Dussollier), suffers a major stroke. Matters quickly get complicated, however, when André, availing of a quiet moment together, asks Emmanuèle to help him end his life …

Written and directed by François Ozon, a long-time collaborator with Emmanuèle Bernheim, Everything Went Fine is an absorbing story of grief, pain and guilt that is all the more powerful for its refusal to indulge in histrionics or grand gestures.

André is by no means a beloved father: Emmanuèle and her sister Pascale (Géraldine Pailhas) are largely inured to his casual cruelties at this point (the flashbacks to Emmanuèle’s childhood make for some of the toughest viewing in the film), and he has long since been estranged from his wife Claude (Charlotte Rampling).

Everything Went Fine - in cinemas and on Curzon Home Cinema 17th June Picture: Carole Bethuel/Mandarin Production-Foz for declan burke caroline delaney

Stark and austere, Everything Went Fine is an emotionally bruising account of the ultimate expression in filial devotion that finds Sophie Marceau in superb form and André Dussollier delivering a masterclass in black comedy as the incorrigible but unrepentant André.

(cinema release)