Truly Dreadful Film

hyped garbage

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

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.

Here's the best antidote for Borat, a feather-light comedy about families pervaded by good taste, good manners, and mutual understanding.Family Law (Derecho de familia) is an Argentinean film centered on an impeccable young man with a certain reserve. He sleeps in his suit – or so his wife, Sandra (Julieta Díaz) puts it. Actually he's in his shirt and tie by then. This is Ariel Perelman, or Perelman Junior (Daniel Hendler). When his son, Gastón (Eloy Burman), has a show at his kindergarten, which is Swiss but rather off-puttingly touchy-feely and New Age for his taste, Perelman promises to do the costumes, and he does. He dresses all the children in little dark suits and ties.This is a film that establishes its world most ably, and focuses on helping us understand how that world works. To formulate the guiding point of view, there is Junior's voice-over.Perelman is comfortable in his life, doing things his own way. (The film teaches us to be comfortable with him too.) He courts his future wife, who's a Pilates instructor in Buenos Aires, by having her instruct him. His father Bernardo, or Perelman Senior (Arturo Goetz), is a trial lawyer who keeps a professional witness on call, while Perelman Junior, who lectures on the law, has an associate "interrupt" his lectures to make points. Perelman Junior is on a state salary, while his more prepossessing father is a well known barrister. When reconstruction of the building gives Junior a couple of months off, he doesn't tell his wife; but he does spend more time with little Gastón when Sandra goes to Machu Pichu for a Pilates conference, her first time away since the birth of the little boy. (Junior's somewhat exploratory free-floating status resembles that of the main character in the Chilean Alicia Scherson's terrific movie, Play, who also is having time off work but says nothing about it.) Junior and his wife are a typical Argentinean Jewish-Catholic couple he says. It's not a big deal. But maybe that's the film's greatest accomplishment, again with a light touch: this unceremonious installation of Jewishness in a Latin American setting.Perelman Senior is more outgoing than his son, a man of the old school, charming, known by everybody, an individual of regular routines who has coffee and a croissant before he talks to anybody, and meets with clients in restaurants so they'll be more relaxed. He's on a retainer to some clients, such as an Italian restaurateur always in trouble with the Health Department. And he's a widower with a secretary of a certain age (Adriana Aizemberg) to whom he is close. Perelman Senior has a secret, and at the end we find out what it is.Meanwhile, Perelman Senior has a birthday. Everyone seems to know about it but Perelman Junior. One of his father's cronies sees that the son doesn't embarrass himself. The men grow a bit closer, but Perelman Junior doesn't understand why. For all his distance and his reserve, he's charming with little Gastón (also a charmer), and his intimate moments with Sandra feel perfectly right. Burman is wonderful at avoiding clichés and sentimentality, while talking about the sort of things that attract those defects.Family Law is about the basic things, families, generations, lifestyles, attitudes. Director Daniel Burman is uniquely benign and his humor is of the most gentle, ironic, subtle kind.The sensibility is suavely European – western European, perhaps Mediterranean (and perhaps typically Argentinean Jewish-Catholic). It may be making gentle fun of the Argentinean preoccupation with appearances. Like good Italians – and Italian influence in the country, I hear, is not negligible – the people in Family Law avoid "facendo brutta figura" (looking bad) like the plague. This film is quietly life affirming. It's well made and intelligent. But it may not make a very deep impression on those used to stronger stuff.Indeed, it's better not to talk too much about what happens in Family Law, because its little surprises are all it has. It'll lower your blood pressure, in a good way. Those who prefer to be hit over the head with blunt messages will prefer Borat and declare this a namby-pamby flop.Family Law is Argentina's Best Foreign contender in this year's Oscar competition. (Kazakhstan doesn't have an entry.)

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 found the film quite disappointing. I felt the film lacks focus and intensity and the script is quite flat, almost a soap opera. The film is described (and accordingly so named) as the struggle of Ariel Perlman (Daniel Hendler) a Law professor addressed as 'Doctor Perlman', to realize his own identity from his father, 'Doctor Perlman', an established, sharp Buenos Aires lawyer. Unfortunately the movie has no real focus on this, nor on other aspects of Ariel's life (we see a bit about his role as a teacher, a bit about his family life as husband and father, a bit about his social life, and a bit about his relationship to his father, but no strong story or drama links all this together).In particular I am not too excited to see this movie as the Argentinean candidate for the Foreign Language Oscar nominations for 2006, as I think it will not compete well with high quality submissions such as 'Water'.