Un Air De Famille
France - 1999
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Movie Review By Erik Petersen
A French film with English subtitles, "Un Air De Famille" is the latest work by Cedric Klapisch, director of the popular 1997 French film "When The Catís Away."
The film was adapted from the successful play by the French screenwriting team Agnes Jaoui and Jean Pierre Bacri. Their screenplay earned them the Cesar, the French equivalent of an Oscar. The pair are also acclaimed actors in France and star in this film as the combative siblings, Betty and Henri.
Having been adapted from a play the entire film is set in one location, the family cafe. It's here that the family, two brothers, their sister, mother and one brother's wife, have gathered for a birthday celebration.
Jean-Pierre Darroussin stars as the cafe's waiter Denis, whose wry observations and cautious dialogue lend some levity to often-harsh circumstances. He has a wonderfully expressive face that speaks volumes. He also shares the films most endearing moment when he dances with Yolande, played by Catherine Frot. Their work earned both of them Cesars for Best Supporting Actor and Actress.
For the most part the dialogue is smart and thereís good dramatic tension. The director makes clever use of a bug zapper as a visual metaphor, representing the pain the family inflicts on one another as they are drawn into the same battles again and again. At times though the endless bickering becomes tedious. There are also several flashbacks where we see the family as their younger selves. These flashbacks are stylistically very nice to look at but provide no new information, they merely tell us what we already knew, that the family has always been like this and probably always will be.
"Un Air De Famille" is translated as Family Resemblances and oy, what a family. God knows we all have our own dysfunctional families, so you may be wondering whether you want to spend seven-fifty to hang out with someone elseís. If you do youíll be rewarded with some fine acting and well-written dialogue and at the end probably thankful you have your own family to go home to.
© 1999 - Erik Petersen - Air Date: 1/27/99
