Failing to Escape (Part 2)

My Happy Family (2017)

Last week, we talked about The Lost Daughter (2021) - a movie about a middle aged woman reflecting on motherhood, grappling with her decisions as a young woman to escape the crushing pressures of her domestic existence.

A nice companion to The Lost Daughter is a Georgian film called My Happy Family (2017) made by Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Groß. This film is also about a woman’s attempt to exit her reality, but unlike Leda in The Lost Daughter, the hero of this film makes her escape later in life, once her children are grown.

The movie opens with Manana (Ia Shugliashvili), a 52 year old literature teacher, viewing a rental apartment in Tbilisi, Georgia. Manana currently lives elbow-to-elbow in a small apartment with her husband, her two grown children, her elderly mother and father, and her daughter’s husband.

They share space in a way that anyone who grew up in an immigrant household will completely understand. She has to tiptoe into her daughter’s bedroom every morning to get changed for work because it’s the only room in the apartment with a closet. Manana’s mother is perpetually trying to feed everyone, while incessantly asking questions and giving judgmental advice. Her husband, Soso (Merab Ninidze), is inattentive and careless, and her children are generally lazy ingrates.

One night, which happens to be her birthday, Manana just snaps. All she wants is to be alone, be quiet and eat some cake. But her family invites a ton of people over, everyone parties, eats, drinks, there’s lots of communal singing into the wee hours. Manana is expected to suppress her own desires and be a good sport, but this was all too much. And the next day, she left.

Once she makes the decision to leave, she is met by complete disbelief from everyone. Her parents, her brother, and her entire extended family plead with Manana to move back home but she resists.

We come along with Manana as she works through her newfound independence, sets up her apartment, and gets to peacefully eat a beautiful slice of cake alone. We luxuriate in this freedom with her, a small celebration of her escape from the suffocating apartment full of people.

But soon, it becomes clear that Manana can never completely divest herself of her family’s problems, nor from their joy or their pain. Even once duty and expectations are stripped away, there’s still a core part of her that just wants to take care of them. But she wants to do it on her own terms, not as a worn down, exhausted husk of a woman who is expected to have no needs or desires of her own.

This movie is so enjoyable to watch. It’s subtle but funny and the intimate details of typical Georgian family life are rendered beautifully. Manana’s frustrations or even her urge to escape are broadly relatable. But ultimately, this movie left me thinking about the unbreakable ties we have with our families. And that as difficult as families can be, we’re all stuck in each other’s obits no matter how much space we try to put between ourselves. It’s annoying and sometimes painful but also kind of amazing.

You can stream My Lovely Family and The Lost Daughter on Netflix. Enjoy!