Triangles of Happiness
2014 · 14m · Dinamarca
Directed by Jannik Dahl Pedersen
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic
Hanne and Carsten are desperately trying to keep up appearances to their nosy neighbours. But how do you keep up with the illusion of a happy family in times of crisis — financial crisis?
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Premise-wise it's basically *Scenes from a Marriage* meets mortgage anxiety—fine, whatever—but the film resists the obvious miserabilism by finding actual comedy in the gap between performance and collapse, which is refreshingly unsentimental for something so domestic.
Pedersen positions himself within a Nordic social-realist lineage while maintaining formal control over the tonal whiplash between dark comedy and contemplative dread; the restraint in the filmmaking itself becomes the argument about restraint in the marriage.
The film hinges on one recurring visual choice—the couple's exaggerated, almost absurdist politeness toward each other in front of the neighbours—that transforms a thin budget into a laser-focused commentary on performative stability, and every scene lands or falls on the precision of that single decision.