The narrative shifts when François travels to a nearby town for work and meets Émilie, a postal clerk who strikingly resembles his wife. François begins an affair with Émilie. Crucially, his love for Émilie does not diminish his love for Thérèse; rather, he views his new relationship as an expansion of his happiness. François describes his joy as an orchard: he already had a wonderful plot of fruit, and now he has simply added another tree.

However, this tranquility is upended during a sweltering summer when François meets Émilie (Marie-France Boyer), an attractive postal clerk who bears a striking resemblance to his wife . Rather than succumbing to guilt, François embraces the affair with an unnerving logic, viewing his new relationship not as a betrayal but as an “addition” to his already abundant happiness. “Happiness works by addition,” he tells Émilie . Convinced that love is infinite, François confesses his affair to Thérèse during a family outing, expecting her to share his enlightened perspective . He explains that his love for her remains unchanged, “but has been enhanced by the new happiness he has found with Émilie” .

But as Varda herself famously described it, the film is like . It is perhaps the most provocative and disturbing "happy" movie ever made. The Plot: Happiness by Addition

Decades later, the film stands tall as an incredibly modern piece of feminist cinema. It predates the structural critiques of the second-wave feminist movement and anticipates contemporary discussions surrounding the unequal distribution of emotional labor and the suffocating expectations placed on motherhood.

In 1965, at the height of the French New Wave, Agnès Varda unveiled a film that would forever alter the landscape of French cinema— Le Bonheur ( Happiness ) . With its radiant colors, the playful strains of Mozart, and a plot that defied every conventional morality, Varda created what critics have since called a “stealth bomb feminist film” . To date, the film stands as a radical exploration of love, desire, and the oft-unquestioned concept of happiness itself.