François, a handsome young joiner working for his uncle, lives a comfortable and happy life married to his pretty wife Thérèse, a dressmaker, with whom he has two delightful children, Pierrot and Gisou. The family love outings to the woods outside of town. Although finding abundant happiness in his life and indisputably loving his wife and children, François falls for Émilie, an attractive single woman working in the post office, who has a flat of her own and looks very like Thérèse. He does not lie to Émilie about his happiness with and love for his wife and children, and she accepts his visits. Picnicking in the woods one weekend, Thérèse asks François why he seems so particularly happy of late. He explains that all his existing happiness with her and the children is not changed in any way but has been increased by the new happiness he has found with Émilie. Putting the children to sleep under a tree, Thérèse encourages François to make love to her. He falls asleep afterwards and, waking up, finds Thérèse gone. Searching desperately, he finds her body that anglers have retrieved from the lake. After a spell in the country, where relatives are looking after the children, François returns to work and looks up Émilie. Soon she is living in his house, looking after him and the children. The family are all very happy together and love to go on outings to the woods outside of town. He has once again found abundant happiness in his life, indisputably loving his new wife and children.
François' wife and children are played by Jean-Claude Drouot's real-life family in their only film appearances.
Reception
In a 2019 tribute to the memory of Agnes Varda, Sheila Heti, AS Hamrah and Jenny Chamarette included Le Bonheur among their favourite of Varda's films, with Charmarette claiming it as her favourite and describing it as "like nothing else: a horror movie wrapped up in sunflowers, an excoriating feminist diatribe strummed to the tune of a love ballad. It’s one of the most terrifying films I’ve ever seen." Hamrah called Le Bonheur "Varda’s most shocking movie," adding "it’s deeply subversive and works like a horror film How many films are truly shocking the way Le Bonheur is? I don’t think there are any others." While Heti stated "I don’t have a favourite, but the one I think about most often is probably Le Bonheur because it had such a devastating ending. It is perhaps the most straightforward in terms of story-telling, yet truly radical – emotionally radical, come the end. It’s impossible to stop thinking about this ending and what it says about love, life, chaos and fate."
