François, a happily married carpenter with a young family, falls in love with telephone operator Emilie. As he basks in the joy of his new relationship, his feelings for his family intensify. But when he tries to share his joyful news with his wife, her reaction is far from the delight he hoped for.

Agnès Varda’s color-saturated third feature is a thorough takedown of the nuclear family, which deconstructs the one-way relationship of a husband and wife and their apparently idyllic life together. Bold, sun-drenched and provoking, Le bonheur is a proto-feminist time bomb that’s ready to detonate.