Conductors make great subjects for character studies. There’s something inherently cinematic and psychologically compelling about watching someone’s face go through all kinds of different emotions as they boss an orchestra about. There’s also the metaphor of balance. Just as the bassoons and the flutes should be in sync, a conductor has to find a way to balance their work and personal relationships.
Made with members of the real Montreal Orchestre Métropolitain, the Quebecois drama Days of Happiness (Chloé Robichaud, 2023) tells the story of Emma (Sophie Desmarais) as she attempts to make it in the cut-throat, politically-motivated, deeply-demanding world of conducting.
Using music as a metaphor to explore the ways history can repeat itself in different ways — sometimes quiet, sometimes forceful, sometimes slow, sometimes fast — Days of Happiness is all about the ways we are treated can reverberate in the way we treat others.
We start with her orchestral residency, soon coming to an end. At first, I wondered how she got such a position at all. These things are rarely about raw talent alone. Conductors are known for their larger-than-life personas, the way they direct a stage, the way they bring the music alive — you have to be a character. Emma has yet to find that strength through performance.
The first scene sets the scene wonderfully: she drifts across a swimming pool on an inflatable raft, but when she’s stuck in the middle, she calls for help. It turns out she can’t even swim. It’s an apt metaphor for Emma herself, who dives straight into things without thinking about the perils ahead.
Played with a modesty that hides acres of hidden passion, the small, lithe, yet subtly emotional Desmarais plays our protagonist as a woman tragically caught between passions. Simultaneously navigating passive-aggressive decision-makers, her own love of the music, her manipulative agent/father Patrick (Sylvain Marcel) and her new girlfriend Naëlle (Nour Belkhiria), Emma has to find a way to thread the needle between these relationships and to deliver a perfect performance of Mahler’s fifth.
Considering it’s about a lesbian conductor whose career hinges upon a Mahler performance, Tár (Todd Field, 2022) comparisons are simply unavoidable — an unfortunate recent shadow to loom under considering Cate Blanchett’s masterful, career-best performance.
But Days of Happiness is really the inverse of Field’s film; instead of focusing on a controlling, imperious maniac, we have a woman struggling to find the dynamism and passion needed to become the next Lydia Tár (minus the abuse allegations). If anything, the film provides a lesson in navigating toxicity — breaking out of her father’s thumb, listening to her girlfriend’s needs and wants properly — as opposed to succumbing to it; offering a more hopeful alternative for women (and perhaps some men) in the orchestral arts.
Modestly compelling and the epitome of handsomely-made, there are small, subtle rewards to be had; yet as I listened to her play Mahler’s Adagietto, it’s hard to say if I was moved by the film, or simply the beautiful music itself. For all the people lecturing Emma about her lack of passion, I’d say the film suffers from the same curse, which never quite steps up to that vital gear the genre needs. All the notes are there, but I rarely felt the music.
Redmond is the editor-in-chief of Journey Into Cinema.