The Happiest Man in the World – TIFF 2022
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September 8 to September 18, 2022
A matchmaking event brings back traumatic memories for a middle-aged woman after she learns the truth about the man she was paired up with in The Happiest Man in the World. Asja (Jelena Kordić Kuret) is a legal advisor from Sarajevo who attends a blind dating event, where she is paired with banker Zoran (Adnan Omerović). However, as the two proceed through the rounds of the event, Asja learns that she and Zoran have more in common than she expected.
The Happiest Man in the World is a darkly comic drama from Macedonian co-writer and director Teona Strugar Mitevska. The two protagonists of Asja and Zoran begin their dating event innocently enough, and the two almost seem like they would be a good match for each other. However, Asja soon learns that she and Zoran were on opposite sites of the Sarajevo conflict with Serbian forces and that Zoran is more interested in forgiveness than a date.
There is a significant layer of irony in the title of The Happiest Man in the World since it can be surmised that the male protagonist Zoran is anything but happy. It is an interesting narrative decision to set a film with such weighty subject matter at what is essentially a speed-dating event. The Happiest Man in the World makes you ask whether you can truly forgive someone for horrible events in the past and whether the connection between the two protagonists would be better under different circumstances.
