Szczęśliwy człowiek

A beautifully shot drama, Happy Man is an ambitious debut from Małgorzata Szumowska. Unemployed Maria (Jadwiga Jankowska-Cieślak) lives with her 30-year-old son, Jas (Piotr Jankowski), an emotional would-be writer. Maria and Jas carefully "hide" the knowledge of her lung cancer from each other, each believing the other is in the dark. To make her last days happy, the son finds a job and brings home Marta (Małgorzata Chajewska-Krzysztofik), a single mother whom he asks to marry him to please mom. Yet Marta proves to be the best thing that ever happened to the family, but Jas is too wrapped up in his immaturity to notice. Szumowska adopts a direct style of lensing and reaches deep into the characters, side-stepping all stereotypes. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)