A wealthy family's cloistered existence is disrupted by the arrival of
the patriarch's estranged son.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Sonja Prosenc
Starring: Mila Bezjak, Aliocha Schneider, Marko Mandić, Katarina
Stegnar, Judita Franković Brdar, Jure Henigman
This Slovenian entry into the overcrowded canon of satirical European
comedies centred on soulless rich folk resembles the sort of movie you
might get if you prompted a sophisticated AI programme to deliver on
demand a cross between Ruben Ostlund and Yorgos Lanthimos. Playing out in
a literal glass house that becomes a goldfish bowl, the film has the
pristine look we expect of such cold examinations of dehumanisation, and
it features committed performances, but it's never as amusing as its
Scandinavian and Greek Weird Wave cousins.
The movie opens with its cleverest touch, a gag involving a character
walking against the path of an airport escalator. The character in
question is wealthy patriarch Aleksander (Marko Mandic), and the
visual pun suggests he's accustomed to the world giving way to his needs.
The non-compliant escalator is but the first obstacle he'll be forced to
contend with over the following two hours. The next comes in the form
of Julien (Aliocha Schneider), a 25-year-old foreigner
Aleksander has only recently discovered is his son from a past
relationship. Aleksander has invited his newly discovered offspring to
spend time with his family, much to the chagrin of his stern
wife Olivia (Katarina Stegnar) and their sullen teenage
daughter Agata (Mila Bezjak). Aleksander's true motivation for
inviting Julien is to enter a contest for the "perfect family" to win a
trip to space.
The ensuing dramedy falls somewhere between Pasolini's Teorema and Paul Mazursky's '80s Renoir reworking Down and Out in Beverly Hills, as Julien embodies a hybrid of the intruders played by Terence Stamp
and Nick Nolte in those films. His presence grows increasingly divisive,
driving a rift between Alexsander and the women members of his family,
both of whom grapple with their attraction to the handsome young
interloper. Julien forces the family to confront their snobbishness when
he allows a working class family whose car broke down into the cloistered
home. Watching Alexsander and his sheltered brood struggle to conceal
their classist contempt for these strangers sets up the film's most
amusing dynamic, but the family exits the narrative before their comic
potential is fully exploited.
A series of comic vignettes play out as Alexsander's family give in to
their primal instincts in the presence of Julien. Literal cracks begin to
appear in the glass windows of the luxurious home, which is slowly invaded
by a series of animals from the nearby woods. The visual metaphors range
from subtly perceptive to thuddingly obvious. Mandic is a standout as the
well-groomed middle class man who regresses to a feral state by the end of
the film, but we've seen this character so many times at this point that
the archetype fails to hold our interest. Writer/director Sonja Prosenc has fashioned a social satire that is superficially effective in
getting its not so novel ideas across, but Family Therapy is ironically as soulless as the elitists at its centre.
