Happy

A documentary film by Carolin Genreith | 85 min | 2016

It's probably every daughter's horror: a postcard from Thailand that says, "My dear, I'm fine here, eating Pat Thai and drinking Chang beer. And I've met a woman younger than you. Love, Dad." For a few years, my father has changed a lot. After separating from my mother, he traded hiking boots for flip-flops and has been going to Thailand for a few weeks every year since, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends - all of whom are over 60 and divorced. My father says he and his friends have the best time of their lives there. I think: Oh God, what has gotten into him? The Thailand trips are embarrassing for me as a daughter, and in our home village in the northern Eifel they are the topic of conversation at the regulars' table. "The men say, "Genreith is a sex tourist," or, "He's going to buy himself a wife! Is it like that? Are my father's trips simply sex tourism? A taboo? Is my father one of those men who roam the streets of Bangkok with a young, beautiful Thai woman in his arms? What are he and his friends looking for there at their age? Are the trips simply the search for happiness? An expression of a race against time? "Happy" is an affectionate, cheerful and very personal documentary about men, the search for late happiness and the question of what love actually is when you are over 60 and afraid of growing old alone.