MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
THE FAMILY FANG
August 9, 6:30pm, Hoyts Melbourne Central
The dysfunctional family is a field ploughed so often by film makers, especially in America, that you might assume there is not one nutrient left in that depleted soil. Not so, as it turns out.
Family Fang – Horrible Bosses straight man Jason Bateman's second film as director – concerns 40-something siblings who have barely survived their early careers as pawns in their artist parents' staged "happenings".
While other kids were at primary school, Annie (Nicole Kidman) and Baxter (Bateman) were robbing banks for the free lollipops on the teller's counters; playing punk songs about death in the park; and featuring in art magazines as "Child A" and "Child B".
Now Annie's having trouble staying off the booze and, as an actor perpetually on a comeback, overshares with magazine profile writers; Baxter is a stuck novelist whose immobilisation can be partly blamed on his choice of pills.
And on his parents, of course, who have faded from artistic fashion but are still creating stunts. Or are they?
When their parents disappear, the former Child Art Assistants are confused. What if their parents are really dead? Can they still reasonably resent them?
It's potentially the stuff of sentiment and psychobabble, but Bateman's film is bracingly flinty: nobody here gets a free pass.
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