Deeply odd, often painfully funny, sometimes just painful (in the good, emotional way), and often all 3 at once.
A character study of an eccentric father trying to re-connect with his very straight laced adult daughter doesn't sound like it would be nearly as unique as this wildly idiosyncratic film. But Ade (who is terribly under known in the U.S. for her two excellent earlier features "The Forrest for the Trees" and "Everyone Else") manages to keep us delightfully (if sometimes very uncomfortably) off-balance for over two and a half hours as her film and characters resolutely refuse to go where we might expect from other stories with similar themes.
I loved the way Ade explains nothing. There is almost no expository dialog in the whole film. It's up to us to figure out relationships, the past, motives, emotions, sanity vs. madness, even simply what the hell is going on at that moment by really watching the behavioral details of some wonderful performances (especially by her two leads). While the film could perhaps have been trimmed a bit, and not every scene works as well as the best, it's without doubt one of my very favorite films of 2016.
I'm old enough and have seen enough movies that when a film-maker can give me an experience unlike any other I've had with a film before I'm thrilled. And that's what Ade does with this heartbreaking comedy. If forced to describe it with a gun to my head, maybe the best I could come up with for the tone and feel would be "Harold and Maude" as made by Ingmar Bergman. :-)
A character study of an eccentric father trying to re-connect with his very straight laced adult daughter doesn't sound like it would be nearly as unique as this wildly idiosyncratic film. But Ade (who is terribly under known in the U.S. for her two excellent earlier features "The Forrest for the Trees" and "Everyone Else") manages to keep us delightfully (if sometimes very uncomfortably) off-balance for over two and a half hours as her film and characters resolutely refuse to go where we might expect from other stories with similar themes.
I loved the way Ade explains nothing. There is almost no expository dialog in the whole film. It's up to us to figure out relationships, the past, motives, emotions, sanity vs. madness, even simply what the hell is going on at that moment by really watching the behavioral details of some wonderful performances (especially by her two leads). While the film could perhaps have been trimmed a bit, and not every scene works as well as the best, it's without doubt one of my very favorite films of 2016.
I'm old enough and have seen enough movies that when a film-maker can give me an experience unlike any other I've had with a film before I'm thrilled. And that's what Ade does with this heartbreaking comedy. If forced to describe it with a gun to my head, maybe the best I could come up with for the tone and feel would be "Harold and Maude" as made by Ingmar Bergman. :-)