Until someone else posts a comment this one is going to tip the balance in favor of Tonie Marshall's minor gem. I accept the right of the first poster to be negative and it is possible that the film touched a nerve and/or he/she saw it on a bad day. Whatever this IS a great black comedy, trust me, I'm a doctor. It may well have been the ending in which Marshall has the siblings dancing on their father's coffin in the cemetery that influenced Daniele Thompson to OPEN her own dysfunctional family entry, La Buche, in a cemetery, though Thompson confined the black humor to the verbal kind. We begin with a great premise. Jean Yanne, who distributes his seed liberally and indiscriminately, finds himself in court facing a count of Murder One. Four of his siblings who have never met him or each other read about the case, turn up in court and realize their connection. When the siblings in question are Anemone, Nathalie Baye, Francois Cluzet and American Molly Ringwald (presumably to illustrate how FAR Yanne spread his seed) we can rest easy knowing that Class is Alive and Well in the Acting Department. After the initial meeting/realization it's just a case of inhibitions being removed and catalysts doing their work. In his orneriness Yanne wants to leave his loot to yet a fifth sibling from SOUTH America yet but, having seen him off, the quartet proceed to induce a heart attack in Yanne by describing how they KILLED their half-brother and this leads to the climactic scene in the cemetery when, in an effort to get a quart into a pint pot (the grave is not quite large enough to accept the coffin, you really had to be there) the quartet mount the coffin and literally kick it into the place where it will do the most good. Slightly brilliant.
Review of Bastard Brood
