HAPPILY EVER AFTER (TIFF 2026) Review by Rachel West
Happiness comes in many forms, and what we dream will bring us a true state of happiness isn’t always what ultimately makes us feel fulfilled. It’s a lesson Kitty learns in Happily Ever After, the new drama from writer-director Feng-I Fiona Roan.
The film centres on two sisters who couldn’t be more different. Kitty (Shuhua Yeh) is the younger sister and, quite obviously, her mother’s favourite child. She’s pretty and polite, on the verge of landing a big promotion at work, and engaged to a wealthy man. Her older sister, Claire (Xuan Chen), is a successful author, single, and far from traditional. Each sister has taken a different path in her search for happiness. One seems to have had everything come easily, while the other has worked hard to build the life she wants. Outwardly, both appear to have succeeded. But behind closed doors, each struggles to find true happiness, discovering that the things they believed would bring them the most joy are far more complicated than they ever imagined.
In her latest film, Roan asks her characters — and, by extension, her audience — to consider what happiness really means and how it is achieved. As the saying goes, “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” But what happens when the destination looks a little rundown and tarnished after a rocky journey? For these two young women, the harsh truths of adulthood and reality begin to seep into the girlish dreams they once held so tightly.
Competently directed and well-paced, Roan’s Happily Ever After is a satisfying follow-up to her previous film, American Girl, for which she became the first woman to win Best New Director at the Golden Horse Awards, one of the most prestigious honours in Chinese-language cinema. With her latest film, Roan builds on the promise of her debut, coaxing a balanced and sincere performance from K-pop star Yeh in her first acting role.
Kitty initially appears to be the less complicated of the two sisters, but beneath her bubbly, girlish exterior are deep-seated doubts that leave her increasingly unsettled, eventually culminating in her finding the courage to vocalize them. Claire, meanwhile, seems like the deeper thinker: a successful author who has deliberately chosen a life far removed from the traditional path her parents, particularly her mother, envisioned for her. Chen plays her with complexity and grounding, ensuring Claire feels like a fully realized character rather than simply a foil to Kitty.
Roan’s script is also refreshing in its portrayal of the sisters’ father. Bucking expectations for the often-distant or overbearing father figure, he is warm, understanding, and supportive of both daughters, regardless of the choices they make. For Claire, that means accepting and supporting whom she loves; for Kitty, it means encouraging her to make her own money rather than becoming financially dependent on a husband. It’s refreshing to see a father take such an affirming approach to his daughters and their independence.
Kitty and Claire are ultimately on parallel paths toward adulthood, each confronting the realities of leaving the family home and, more importantly, what it truly means to grow up. Their journeys may look very different on the surface, but both are forced to reckon with the gap between the lives they imagined for themselves and the lives they are actually living. And perhaps that is where Happily Ever After finds its greatest truth that happiness isn’t necessarily found where we expect it to be.
