If Michael Haneke should die before he wakes, I pray the Lord his soul to take, along with this half-baked sequel to his magnificent Amour (2012).

From its ingenious start to the nifty end, Haneke brings the viewers a full circle to this significant truth.

The film remains interesting, if not particularly eye-opening, until it reveals how the characters are related. Then it becomes the sort of sardonic chronicle of upper-middle-class discontentment that Claude Chabrol did better with less portentousness.

Even retreading old content would be fine if Haneke went about it in an interesting way, but Happy End seems to be on formal autopilot...