Happiness Is in the Field

A French comedy worth your evening, Happiness Is in the Field (Le bonheur est dans le pré, 1995) is one to watch online on iFILM, with Michel Serrault as a man itching to vanish from his own life.

Francis runs a plumbing-supply firm in a sleepy town, and everyone wants a piece of him. His employees strike for sport, his wife and daughter bleed him dry, and the tax office circles with a bill big enough to sink the company. Then a TV program about missing persons airs a photo of a man who walked out on his wife in the Gers nearly thirty years ago. The face is Francis's, down to the last line.

So he takes the gamble, steps into the dead man's shoes, and finds a calmer, richer life waiting, because the vanished husband left money behind. Director Étienne Chatiliez plays it as gentle satire of rural France rather than broad farce, and Serrault grounds every laugh. Eddy Mitchell, Sabine Azéma and Carmen Maura fill out the bench. Stream Happiness Is in the Field (1995) online on iFILM.