Family Resemblances

reviewed by Charles T. Markee

Family Resemblances (Un air De Famille - 1996 - subtitles)

The title of this excellent French film should have been "Dysfunction: a Family Case Study." It has some wonderful examples of angst, spite, intolerance, animosity and disillusionment all counterbalanced in the storyline by one character, Denis, a lowly waiter employee in the family cafe. It begins when two brothers, one wife, a sister and their mother meet at the cafe to celebrate the wife's 35^th birthday.

The actors who play the brother, Henri, who runs the cafe and the sister, Betty are both also the playwrights who wrote the play this film is based on. In the story, Henri's wife has just left him for some time apart so he's furious, the sister, Betty is indifferent and sulking, the other brother, Philippe is tense, self involved and critical, Yolande, his suppressed, trophy wife cowers, and the mother of the three siblings comments with a spiteful, vitriolic tongue.

There's no shortage of problems to launch the story and all the family members exhibit an overt nastiness. Denis, the waiter, and Socrates the dog are the only ones that seem capable of a reasonable perspective. This short vignette takes place in an afternoon and evening within the cafe, one locale, and it's engaging from the start. Anxiety, anger and tempers escalate in cascades of biting dialogue. The plotline develops in successive emotional explosions.

In confusing contrast, there are occasional flashbacks to the sibling's time as children with both their parents when they all played together. It adds mystery. What early life antecedent could have changed them so much?

All of this bombastic interaction plays out with the hint of potential improvement. The zebra's stripes don't change, but you wonder at the end if some of the edges might fade just a little.

There were a few cases of bad translation in the subtitles.

Not rated, but at least PG-13 for the use language.

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