Les lois de la famille

I found this review today, I love the film! Its excellent, charming and you must see the little boy...

The drama begins with the voice-over narration of Perelman (Daniel Hendler), a lawyer in Buenos Aires who teaches at a university. He's talking about the habits of his father, Perelman Sr. (Arturo Goetz), a popular and successful barrister who meets with his clients where they work or in restaurants so he can size them up in a personal setting. He is very close to his secretary (Adriana Aizemberg) since his wife is dead. Work fills his days, and his son his astonished by his energy. Perelman Jr. has a rather lackadaisical lifestyle.

 

After lusting after Sandra (Julieta Diaz), a looker in his class, Perelman Jr. marries her, and she starts teaching pilates in their apartment. They have a son, Gaston (Eloy Burman), who turns out be quite the little charmer. Perelman Jr.'s office building is shut down for a month, and he is given some time off, but he doesn't share this news Sandra. Asked at school to participate in a program, he rebels but eventually capitulates.

 

Family Law explores in a realistic and touching way the emotional barriers that often block intimate conversation between fathers and sons. Perelman Jr. intuits that something different is going on with his father but does not ask him about it. He forgets to buy a birthday present for his father's 65th birthday and is embarrassed to admit it.

 

Many sons are intimidated by their larger-than-life fathers and spend a lot of time hiding in their shadows. Perelman Jr.'s lack of drive comes through in his relationship with Sandra as well. He has the habit of falling into bed at night and sleeping in his shirt and tie. She is very patient with his foibles and when she goes away for the first time since the birth of their son, she hopes that her husband will be able to manage without her.

 

Daniel Hendler puts in a rounded and relaxed performance as the underwhelming Perelman Jr., a young man who slowly comes into his own. Family Law is the official entry from Argentina for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Awards.

I liked this movie because it's refreshingly different from Hollywood fare. It doesn't slam you in the face with obvious, hackneyed comedy or drama. It doesn't pontificate or send us strong signals from the belly of existential angst, although that is one of its underlying premises.

The problem with the film is that it's pretty static; it doesn't gather momentum, it doesn't draw us in with any kind of a solid story. It's a would-be philosophical offering about father and son lawyers (Arturo Goetz and Daniel Hendler respectively), and how a son can aspire to be like his father, but never can. Despite our connection by blood, we can never replicate our parents.

In Daniel Burman's film, we must do some thinking, which is fine with me; thinking about a movie is getting rare these days. We fill in a lot of blanks with this film, which is guided by minimalist techniques. Enter another problem: when we don't really feel like filling in the blanks, when the film just isn't that engaging to make us WANT to fill in the blanks, then we're left dangling.

'Dereche de Familia' is interesting because it's off-key and unpredictable. Other than that, it doesn't have much going for it. There is a lot of potential for dramatic or comedic character development, but it just keeps falling short.

I was perplexed when Hendler (the son) married a gorgeous pilates instructor (Julieta Diaz). Despite this, we never really see Diaz's hard body, and there is only a hint of sexual activity. If Diaz is set up as a sexy 'other,' why is she just physically ignored?

Somebody had to be crass and state the obvious. Welcome to my world.

I have looked at seven new films from the video shop during the past week* and found that I liked only one - Family Law - which I watched on Sunday evening. So now, here I am on Monday morning trying to get a little said about this charming little movie before I have to begin, again, my preparations for an influx of relatives arriving mid-week in celebration of the commencement of my niece's husband from Catholic University Law School.

I guess it is a bit of an irony that this film deals with family relationships considering its arrival in my life at this particular point in time. The relationships - particularly between fathers and sons - explored in Family Law are loving but sometimes painfully distant. The film is narrated by the son who experiences, by the end of the film, recognition of what it means to be a father and a son for in the film we see three generation of Perelmans. The grandfather is a popular attorney who doesn't shy away from shady deals. He has an "in" almost everywhere in the system and uses it to the advantage of his clients. The son - Ariel, our narrator - is also a lawyer and professor of law who holds ethics as his highest esteem.

Ariel becomes attracted to a student in one of his classes and sets out to woo her. Ironically, he is finally able to do so by seeking his father's help in a law suit in which his love is involved.

Skip ahead a couple of years and Ariel is now a father but not a very good one. His approach to child rearing is like something out of the 1950's. Through a series of circumstances, Ariel comes to fully appreciate his father and gain the knowledge of how to be a better father himself.

This is a story that has been told and retold, so what's so special about this film? It's the acting and direction. Daniel Hendler plays Ariel with quiet introspection to reveal emotions both painful and joyous. The charming, exuberant grandfather is played by Arturo Goetz giving us a man we have to love even though some of his dealings are not exactly kosher. The grandson has a face that makes you want to go, "Ahhhhhh." He is played by Eloy Burman. I could not find whether or not he is related to the director.

The women in the lives of these three are Ariel's wife, Sandra, and the grandfather's secretary, Norita. Sandra - played by Julieta Díaz - is a modern woman who doesn't give much quarter to her husband's quirks (such as sleeping fully dressed with tie and all) and his failures at being a better father to their son. Adriana Aizemberg gives a heartfelt and touching performance as Norita, the loyal secretary.

I had worked really hard all day Sunday in preparation of the coming "invasion" but was then treated to this great little flick. It was the perfect reward for me. I think that you, too, would find this film rewarding.

*For those who wonder, the seven were Fun Down There, Short Stack, Does God Exist?, The Dead Girl, The Fountain, Seraphim Falls, and Family Law.

Most modern Argentine movies are of dark, sad topics. This one is not quite a comedy, but not melodramatic either. Instead it is a pleasant film about family relationships. Father and son are attorneys in Buenos Aires but the son has never worked with his dad, although the father's office had a room for him. Instead he is a creative university professor of law, and meets his future wife there. When the son becomes a father himself, he takes stock of his life and realizes there is more to it than work. The movie is entertaining, but simple, and well acted. It hasn't yet been released in the US, but I saw it in Buenos Aires and English subtitles were available on the DVD.

Even the great cinema masters, including Bergman, Kurosawa and Fellini, reached a point where rehashing the same old stories in new containers became old and boring... Too bad that a promising young Argentine director has reached such a place in so few years. What a boring, mindless movie... What a lack of story, what a lack of feelings(and the lack of feelings was no purposefully described).. how little to say None of the characters has been developed; we can't and don't care much for anybody... maybe the best actor, or at least the one with whom we can connect is the 2 or 3 yrs old child... otherwise, the movie is fairly boring... cute in a vacuous sense. I hate to do this: not worthwhile to go to the movies... nor rent.