Search - Un Air De Famille on DVD

French Comedy Has A Pungent Air

Jethro Manjay | 04/15/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"A major hit in France where it took several Cesars, Cedric Klaspich's wry comedy about a contentious family who meet every Friday for dinner didn't fare so well with American critics or audiences. What a shame! This is a very entertaining ensemble piece and Klaspich's direction is so assured that the film moves along gracefully even though it's mainly set in a dingy bar on the outskirts of Paris. Jean-Pierre Bacri plays the owner of the bar and the host of the reunion with his social-climbing brother and his uptight, mousy sister-in-law (a sensational Catherine Frot), ne'er-do-well sister, and harridan mother. Bacri uses his hounddog face and weary demeanour (he looks like he hasn't slept in two months) to create a hilarous and despearate portrait of a man whose life hasn't amounted to much and who keeps getting reminded of it. He's perfectly complemented by a fine cast whose characters don't ask for our sympathy but get it anyway - Agnes Jaoui as his lonely and cynical sister, Jean-Pierre Darrousin as his ostensibly simpleton assistant and Catherine Frot as his meek sister-in-law are particular standouts (the latter two share a wonderful dancing scene together). While most films are directed to the special effects or the persona of this or that star, Klaspich has directed "Un Air de Famille" to get the actors to play off each other. And they respond by getting such jagged, funny rhythms going between them that they lift the movie out of its stagebound setting - it was originally a play written by Bacri and Jaoui - and into a comic world of its own. Much like his last film, "When the Cat's Away," Klaspich has an observant and quiet approach which gets at the nuances of people's relationships even when they're broadly comic as they are here (the protagonist in "Cat's Away" had no contact with the outside world while the people in "Famille" know each other so well that they're all fed up and tense). Klaspich works in a deliberately minor-key - much like Claude Sautet but without the chill of high culture - and his style is unobtrusive: he lets his actors shine. Few films actually portray the tense and acerbic relations family members often share in such a comic light but "Famille" isn't cynical or mean-spirited. Despite its occassional lulls (especially in the last half-hour), the film shows the inherent comedy in the peculiar dynamics of this family and their frustrations and conflicts -- these people drive each other nuts and yet they stay together too. A comedy about family dysfunction, "Un Air de Famille" allows its actors to work in perfect comic harmony."