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Affaire de famille
2008 Crime / Thriller / Comedy
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Director:
Claus Drexel
Starring: André Dussollier, Miou-Miou, Eric Caravaca, Hande Kodja, Julien Courbey |
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Summary
To all appearances, the Guignebons are a typical middle class French
family. They live in Grenoble, near to the sports stadium where
Jean, the father, a keen footbal enthusiast, spends many a happy
hour. One day, the takings from a match at the stadium are stolen
and that same evening someone sets fire to the Guignebons’ garden
shed. Laure's suspicions that her husband, Jean, may be
implicated in the robbery are confirmed when she finds a bag filled
with banknotes in his study...
Credits
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Review
Affaire de famille was
presumably intended to be a blackly comedic thriller but the result
feels more like a juvenile Hitchcockian take on the theatre of the
absurd. It is hard to know which lets the film down more - its
script (which has the sophistication and realism of an episode of Scooby Doo,
but with none of the charm), or the half-hearted direction, which
relies too much on tired clichés. The film's biggest flaw,
however, is that it just doesn't seem to know whether it's an out-and-out parody policier or a
bona fide suspense thriller with a comic edge.
One suspects that Claus Drexel's film debut would have passed almost without anyone noticing had it not been for the acting talent he was able to attract. André Dussollier, Miou-Miou and Eric Caravaca are all playing this for laughs, which is perhaps what it merits given that none of their characters is even remotely convincing. This viewing experience really would have been torture if they had tried to play it completely straight, and mercifully none of the cast strays too far into vaudeville territory. Drexel’s attempt to tell the same story from several different points of view is an obvious rip off of Lucas Belvaux’s Trilogie (2002) but at least it helps to mask the weak storyline and does serve to introduce an element of suspense and dark humour into the proceedings. Despite the above grumbles, the film is watchable, and in some of the later sequences Drexel shows some promise, but overall it is just too too hackneyed and mild to make much of a lasting impression. © filmsdefrance.com 2009 Write a review for this film...User Comments
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