Goodbye happiness | Knowing how to break free from the past

Dramatic comedy Goodbye happiness by Ken Scott tells the story of four brothers who go to the Magdalen Islands to spread their father’s ashes. A highly symbolic gesture of liberation. At the same time, they have the unique chance to free themselves from certain vestiges of the past to look to the future. Back to the shoot.

André Duchesne
Press

On a windswept hill in the Magdalen Islands, they meet, William, Charles-Alexandre, Nicolas and Thomas, with their wives and children, to spread the ashes of their father, Philippe.

The scene is spectacular, full of emotion. It also refers to the title of the film. Does the death of the father close the door to a long and happy family history, at the end of which everyone will go their own way? Or is there something liberating about spreading the ashes, opening the door to something new and healthy?

The viewer will draw their own conclusions. But hey, it’s Christmas after all, so we can imagine how the winds of the islands will turn …

“I think that this film gives the taste to come together, indicates the actress Charlotte Aubin, interpreter of Camille in the film. The four brothers go through a lot of conflict, but they love each other despite their faults. ”

“After two years of pandemic, we can expect that this kind of meeting, ritual, we miss”, says François Arnaud, whose character of Nicolas is in a relationship with Camille. “The film evokes this crumbling of rites of passage …”

“… Which makes it a good film focused on traditions for the holiday season,” adds Charlotte Aubin.

For his part, screenwriter and director Ken Scott wanted to tell a family story, yes, but without the story being just cute. For him, the story had to have depth.

” Goodbye happiness is a dramatic comedy that talks about mourning and family from a melancholy angle, he said in an interview. I know there are a lot of family dramas in the movies. This is normal: the spectator recognizes himself in it. But to make a good story, you have to bother to dig. ”

While writing his screenplay, it was important to him that the viewer felt the weight of each line between the brothers. “When one of them refuses, for example, the project of his Epicurean brother to give a new vocation to the family home, we feel that this exchange is steeped in history,” he defends.

As Ken Scott likes to write scripts where there are several characters (Starbuck, The great seduction by Jean-François Pouliot, Maurice richard by Charles Binamé), we ask him how far there is a part of himself in them.

He smiles…

“I hope there is a lot of me in the stories I do,” he says. But I prefer to transpose things. I don’t have a brother and my father is alive [il touche du bois en le disant]. I am the father of three daughters. I am therefore well surrounded and I have things to say about the family. On the other hand, it is easier for me to tell the truth by translating my ideas into fictional characters. ”

A story far from Montreal

Goodbye happiness is worn by the actors Patrice Robitaille (William), Louis Morissette (Charles-Alexandre), François Arnaud (Nicolas) and Antoine Bertrand (Thomas). They obviously embody four very different brothers from each other.

There are also several other actresses and actors, including Charlotte Aubin, Marilyse Bourke, Elizabeth Duperré, Julie Le Breton, Éric Paulhus, Pierre-Yves Cardinal, Geneviève Boivin-Roussy and many children and inhabitants of the Islands selected for small roles or figuration.

For a first Quebec shoot when activities resume on sets governed by strict health rules, that’s a lot of people. It also took an additional helping hand from SODEC (see the capsule) to make ends meet.

It was also important for Ken Scott to camp his story far from Montreal so that the four brothers and their relatives are in a kind of closed door to settle their differences. Originally, the shooting was to take place in Provence. Then we decided on Havana. But, pandemic obliges, the team turned to the Magdalen Islands.

“We were not losers, quite the contrary,” says Ken Scott. When you shoot a film, you experience difficulties on a daily basis. In such a case, the solution must be better, otherwise we will feel the compromise. This is what the Islands gave us with beaches and landscapes that are always grandiose and different. ”

Several scenes were shot in Havre-Aubert. But we also recognize the Dune du Sud, Fatima, Sandy Hook beach and the Cap-Alright lighthouse in Havre-aux-Maisons, which belongs to Julie Snyder.

If the landscapes make you want to take the first plane to the Islands, the family home in history is not stung by worms. For Ken Scott, she is at the heart of the film and constitutes a character in it.

“It is a metaphor for happiness,” says the filmmaker. The father built it. It has been enlarged. The brothers have to decide what to do with it. It has great financial value, but its sentimental value takes on all its importance. I wanted the viewer to feel more and more committed to this issue around the house. ”

In theaters December 17