Alpha Male

An upper middle class English dysfunctional family is examined while the time switches back and forth from the past to the present.

In the present, Alice is seen begging her son, Jack Ferris, to attend his twenty-first birthday party that she and her husband, Jack's stepfather, are giving. It is clear that Jack dislikes his stepfather and has long been estranged from his mother.

Jack's sister, Elyssa Ferris, still lives at home and seems to maintain a respectful, yet distant relationship with both her mother and stepfather.

Time returns to when Jack and Elyssa were pre-adolescents, and we see the relationship between the children's father - now dead. Jim Ferris is definitely an alpha male being a success in business and expecting exemplary achievements and behavior from his children.

It is clear from their actions that, even though they love their father, and he loves them, that these two children have serious emotional and adjustment problems. A weakness in the storyline of the film is exposed here as Jim Ferris doesn't appear nearly as domineering and controlling enough to foster the abhorrent actions of his children - especially those of Elyssa. Most of this horrible behavior exposes itself after Jim's death.

This film is well acted by all of the players and beautifully produced, but the extreme actions of the two children - both and youths and adults - are not fully justified based upon the events witnessed by the viewer. Never-the-less, it is an interesting and entertaining film.

I went to see this film because I'd heard about it from a friend of mine who worked on the production. Apparently the producers completely re-cut the film to make it more 'commercial' and as a result the director walked away during post-production and asked to have his name removed.

Apparently the director's cut is a totally different film, and I'd be very interested to see it because there are moments in this version that are kind of impressive. The film has an underlying intelligence and you get a sense that the director was trying to achieve something ambitious and different. The writing is confident and subtle and the film has a bold narrative structure. On the downside, some of the editing is quite sloppy and the whole film is marred by a terrible score.

Taking the film at face value, I'd have to say that it was boring at times but also intermittently intriguing. Some of the chronology didn't cohere as you felt it should and yet some of the narrative juxtapositions were beguiling. My balanced assessment is that the film reaches for a unique, dreamlike atmosphere and sometimes it succeeds.