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| The Danish poster for Pernille Fischer Christensen's A Family |
The Rheinwald family's patriarch is well after a period of illness and remarries. But he then suddenly falls deadly ill again. His daughter's life plans consequently fall apart. - And what about the family bakery?
Eminent acting, particularly from Jesper Christensen (Casino Royale (2006)) and Lene Maria Christensen (Brothers/Brødre (2004)), enliven A Family. He is impressively authentic as a dying man, and that is at times hard to watch. But despite touching scenes, the film is flawed:
As immature as all the characters are, (and they are really immature and at times gratingly idiotic), as immature seems the script: SPOILER The abortion is something we are meant to tacitly accept in that we are not exposed to the flushed out fetus, (although Pilou Asbæk (Game of Thrones (2016)) is.) And great co-writer/director Pernille Fischer Christensen (A Soap/En Soap (2006)), whose third feature this is, has stated that this film is a salute to life, which bugs me the wrong way in this context. She was obviously not, at this point in her career anyway, capable of making a serious film about death, which is what is attempted here. It also bothers me that she apparently doesn't see that all of the characters are almost obsessive in their tragically/idiotically poor choices in their behavior, reminiscent of the family we meet in the much superior Another Happy Day (2011).
Christensen co-wrote with Kim Fupz Aakeson (Prague/Prag (2006)). A Family is not a bad film but it is a case of a might-have-been something else and better.
Related review:
Pernille Fischer Christensen: A Soap/En Soap (2006) - P. Christensen's great melodrama debut
Watch the German trailer for the film here
Cost: Approximately 2.4 mil. $ (16 mil. DKK)
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown (but likely a big to huge flop)
[A Family premiered February 19 (Berlin International Film Festival) and runs 102 minutes. 128,488 paid admission to see the film in its native Denmark. It won the critics' prize in Berlin and was shown at seven dozen other festivals and in 4 other European countries. Depending on its performance in these countries, its status might be different, but I label it tentatively as a big flop. 1,023 IMDb users have given A Family a 6.7/10 average rating.]
What do you think of A Family?
