User Reviews

Before his first real feature-length film, François Ozon produced an impressive chain of short films during his cinema student years and beyond. In 1997, the medium-length film "Regarde La Mer" made many film lovers put hopes in this voracious filmmaker. When he was a cinema student, one of his professors kept on repeating him: "Go on! Make movies. Believe in what you're making!". This leitmotiv remained stuck on his mind since Ozon makes at least one movie a year. Passion has no limits. But now back in 1998 about "Sitcom", a cannonball in the calm landscape of French cinema which was written in a fortnight and shot in one month, this quirky offering was disowned by a good part of the French press specialized in cinema and it's easy to see why. It was too much for them to give thumbs up to this special piece of work which already showcases the Ozon style.

This first offering already lets see his influences, his cinematographic, cinema-going tastes. It spans Claude Chabrol for the bourgeois milieu, Luis Bunuel for the will to shatter this milieu through unexpected means and some dreamlike sequences. Furthermore, the beginning of the film with the arrival of the Spanish maid in the desirable mansion echoes to the scene with the arrival of the bishop hired as a gardener to the Sénéchals in "Le Charme Discret De La Bourgeoisie" (1972) or even the arrival of Jeanne Moreau to the Monteils in "Le Journal D'Une Femme De Chambre" (1964) and Ozon clouds the issues with some indications such as "a few months sooner" or "a few months later" like in "Un Chien Andalou" (1928) or "l'Age D'or" (1930) and give the whole an unreal side. Then, like the "king of bad taste and extravagance" (you probably guessed his name) author of "Serial Mom" (1994), Ozon has a liking for trash humor and shocking.

"Sitcom" also presents the seeds of what will be developed later in Ozon's subsequent films, notably the sublime "8 Femmes" (2002) or "Swimming Pool" (2003): a will to enclose his characters in an isolated space to shatter them and to lay bare what's going on in their tormented minds. Also a freewheeling look on sexuality and the inclusion of the grotesque and the admirable.

Here, Ozon takes the corny clichés of the sitcom and explodes them through defaced scenery, ugly cinematography and characters who are devoid of interest and are only puppets. The father who only expresses himself through proverbs and can't see for a long time the disorder which reigns in the house. The mother a little uptight who struggled hard to keep order and harmony. The son, serious at the outset who discovers his homosexuality and gradually becomes outgoing. The daughter, an artist who seems marooned in her education and her life. Possible exit: suicide. An universe which goes awry because of a white rat which sets the depths of the unconscious free.

If one accepts without ulterior reasons, the preposterous staple idea I have just mentioned, "Sitcom" is much fun to watch. The topic could also have given birth to a satire of the bourgeois milieu but it rather takes a back seat. Instead, Ozon prefers to unleash his perverse frenzy of a sadistic child. He apes the nasty piece of work through a series of sequences, perhaps a little loosely linked up and dovetailed but they are virtually all funny and peppered with perennial, nagging black humor and powerful lines. Ozon will keep to the tail end these features and this assumed schoolboy tone. Different sexual moments may give the film a catalog side but they are virtually all filmed with a certain reserve.

The actors all match with their respective roles. One will notice the presence of Marina De Van who before had already worked with Ozon (see "Regarde La Mer") and will after. By the way, her gruesome film "Dans Ma Peau" (2002) isn't suitable for the general public. Anyway, Evelyne Dandry's acting has strong resonances with Hélène Vincent's in Etienne Chatiliez' debut and best film "la Vie Est Un long Fleuve Tranquille" (1988) and François Marthouret's solemn cues could be worth alone the price of admission.

"Sitcom" is a dirty, unreal treat brimming with naughtiness. Ozon's trademark is already palpable in his debut film which, however isn't for all tastes. Make up your mind if you find it repulsive or hilarious.

I just saw this French movie on my local ethnic station & loved it! Although this movie isn't for the usual consumer of comedy, it spirals around many weird & taboo issues such as: Incest, Homosexuality, Depravity & Sadomasochism. Around all this is "the mother" who is naively caught up in her everyday routines to find the secrets her friends & family hold. I recommend this movie for 2 reasons: It's French & it's different.

This is an odd film about a father who brings a pet rat home to his family, which then sparks off their innermost sexual desires. The son announces he's gay, and ends up with a maid's boyfriend; the daughter jumps out of the window and is paralysed, and then gets her boyfriend to hurt her while she puts cigarettes out on her arm. The wife starts to sleep with the gay son. The daughter asks her father to have sex with her, but he declines, saying she's ugly. The ending is really surreal. Wacky, satirical, perverse & crazy. See it if you can.

A wry funny look at the bourgeois family and sexual temptation. According to the French movie website Allociné this is Ozon's first full-length film. Perhaps that's not totally accurate. But assuming that it is, he got off to kind of a late start (he was thirty-one then, now he's about thirty-eight) but has had a pretty amazing, high-profile career since then. The father brings home a pet white rat and the sight or touch of it seems to make everybody go sexually haywire beginning with the son's dinner declaration that he's gay. Well-paced amusing outrageous polymorphously perverse and at the same time in a French way genteel, Sitcom has the bright glossy upper middle-class look you'd probably expect from a TV family comedy. An American newspaper reviewer said this is "John Waters crossed with Eric Rohmer," but for various reasons that is silly. At first I thought Ozon was somewhat derivatively channeling Almodóvar, and there is even an obstreperous Spanish housemaid. Ozon's personal touch is that she has an African husband who seduces boys in his gym classes. Ed Gonzalez got it right when he wrote that this is a bad movie but "its queering of genre conventions is still refreshing." It's not revolutionary though, and that goes for all his films I've seen (Water Drops on Burning Rocks is still on my to-see list): Criminal Lovers, Under the Sand, 8 Women, Swimming Pool, 5x2. He's had fun with these and so have we, but there's a certain lack of conviction or consistent style (apart from the gay sensibility) and given that, it's worth looking back at this "minor" effort. It may have more meat in it -- and confront more personal demons -- than the slick ones with Charlotte Rampling.

We can track back those demons in the US DVD's one extra -- Ozon's very first film, a seven-minute silent in color made in 1988, Photo de famille (Family Photo). Like many fledgling efforts the cast consists of the young filmmaker's family members and they're used to show how a youth casually kills his whole family after dinner, poisons his mother, stabs his sister and smothers his father -- with a smile on his face every time, and then props up the dead bodies on a couch and poses with them for an automatic camera photo, throwing back his head and grinning from ear to ear. The young killer (Guillaume Ozon) looks like River Phoenix so that's a plus that would not have eluded the filmmaker whose young male principals in Les amants criminels were good enough looking to be given the full lush gay beauty treatment by the super-campy photo team Pierre et Gilles. Sitcom obviously realizes this early fantasy of intra-familial hostilities with a lot of embroidery added. Sitcom's siblings are played by an actual brother and sister, Marina and Adrien de Van (they sound like the incestuous siblings in Nabokov's Ada!), Marina being an old collaborator and schoolmate of Ozon's who's made films of her own. It's an amusing touch that Stephane Rideau, who's starred in and directed a number of gay films, plays the sister's straight boyfriend. I assume the Ozons in Family Photo are the actual brother and sister and mother and father. Ozon is doing the same thing in Sitcom; it's just more elaborate.

François Ozon's pitch black mickey take is a biting satire on family life and a brash distraction from the shows of it's title. While many sitcom's are monotonous affairs, Ozon's take on the medium is anything but. Despite taking in many of the clichés of the sitcom - stuffy mother, raunchy maid, bored father etc - Sitcom manages to be continually inventive and the way that it exposes the clichés of the genre is both ludicrously ridiculous and harshly disturbing. The French director proves with this movie that he's not afraid to overstep several boundaries and make a film that dares to be different, and for that reason this film will never be universally liked. However, if you can connect with Ozon's vision, you're in for a treat and that was the situation I found myself in! The story follows a father who, after bringing his family a lab-rat for a present, finds his family collapsing around him - his son discovers he's gay, his daughter jumps out of the window and his wife...well, I'll leave you to find that out on your own.

Sitcom is a singularly unpleasant experience. Watching family life deteriorate is a much more gruelling affair than you might imagine, and even though the family and the situation that Ozon has presented are utterly ridiculous; he still manages to inject life into it, which ensures that it hammers home the point that the auteur intended. Whenever I see a film that dares to be different and deliver something that I haven't seen before, I tend to find myself heaping the praise on it and that is certainly the case with this film. You will not find a comedy with a more rotten core than this one and similarly you will not find one that dares to present the utterly ridiculous happenings that this movie thrives on. I don't know how Ozon thought he could get away with some of the things in this film - not just the taboo's he's portrayed, but other things too, some of which are just too stupid to comprehend – but Ozon makes them work! Sitcom is a movie that needs to be experienced, and it's a film that will divide opinions as much as any other movie ever made. And if only for that reason - see this film as soon as possible.

This is the story of a normal little French family. One day, daddy comes back home with a rat. This rat will change the life of everyone in the family. Son will become gay, daughter will try to suicide and become a sadomasochism adept etc. This movie is really sick in a way but it is innovative and really funny. It is really tough to appreciate this kind of movie if you have only seen Hollywood films, but once you give it a try you discover a whole new kind of art. All I have to say is: Expend your mind dude!

Just as the universe started with a big bang the comedy SITCOM does likewise and in the aftermath we are introduced to a family in utter chaos, disoriented and maladjusted. However, mother who is the central character believes she can rectify many of the problems. Nevertheless it is a white rat brought home by father that generates some sort of harmony within the household. The comedy moves fast and the laughs are in the lines spoken in dead seriousness by the competent cast. The story jumps from dreams to reality so we are never quite sure where we are. It takes someone like Francois Ozon to put all this on film. This original story is amusing rather than shocking and the sex scenes are not explicit but rely on one's imagination. The boys' group session with the courgettes does not go anywhere and one wonders if the censor has interfered. The big surprise is the giant rat sequence when the mood of the film changes and for some could become scary. I do not want to give away the plot. Suffice to say "We are what we eat". There is more truth than fiction in the film. It is now recognized that the keeping of pets can reduce blood-pressure and bring contentment and extend life-spans. Having peeped into all the bedrooms and seen the goings-on, we come in the end to a tombstone and we see the white rat nosing about. It is good story telling to leave us guessing and wondering. I am sure there are many interpretations. Perhaps mother's psychiatrist could attempt to explain it as he continues to unravel the lives of this tangled family.

Twisted, perverted, incredibly disturbing and sometimes funny. In other words, the total opposite of the squeaky-clean TV shows the title of the movie has.

The content of the movie is plain sick. Compared to it, Jerry Springer looks like a sitcom.

The story is about a family that adopts a rat as a pet and all of a sudden becomes the iconization of the word "dysfunctional". If there's a hidden meaning, I wasn't trying to look for it and I never found it. It is a blast to watch if you can stomach it, otherwise run from this title like it was the plague.

I think all the others viewers notes tells us about the story and the feelings that this movie gives to us. I sure like it! This movie takes risk, and that's the kind of stuff I love about movies. The best of the genre always comes from Europe, never in Hollywood. Sitcom should be to the 1990's what Hitchcock's What about Harry was in the 1950's. See this strange little piece of good cinema!

This film is entirely without merit and one wonders at the mentality of the director. It is a crude and tasteless attempt to parody something, although what that is never becomes clear. Does it work as a metaphor? Not for anything of any benefit to anyone. The characters are so unattractive and unpleasant that any point ( if there is one) is lost because no-one could care less. I watched this film on Sky udirect and if they had a money back guarantee I'd be £2.99 better off. Don't waste your time on this garbage.

This film is Francois Ozon's debut, which made him one of the most promising young directors of Europe. Here we have a story, which can be treated as taken as modern 'The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie' by Luis Bunuel. Here a typical French family alters in the most disturbing way. The whole madness starts when father brings home a lab rat. Next the son at the dinner stands and declaims that since that moment he is a gay. Then his sister jumps out of the window trying to commit a suicide...And so on. And the story keeps going till the unusual end, which contains one of the most bizarre sequences in modern European cinema. Acting is at very high level, and so is the directing. Dialogs are pretty witty and memorable. It is difficult to name a genre of this movie, but the closest is - black comedy.

Francois Ozon apparently watched Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema (1968), in which Terrence Stamp mysteriously seduces all the members of a family household. He thought that the idea was great, but it would be improved if the intruder was a pet rat, and that he seduces the entire family into doing perverted/shocking acts. Ozon was right on his assumption when he updated Teorema's plot to shock traditional French values with his feature film debut, Sitcom.

The film follows an typical bourgeoisie French family whose lives dramatically change when they adopt a pet rat. The son transforms from a reserved bookworm into an outspoken/sexually-liberated homosexual whilst the seemingly-normal daughter becomes obsessed with death and sadomasochism. Soon, the rat's influence extends to the other family members, including to the bewildered parents. I dare not say how the matriarch changes as I want that to be a surprise. This surrealistically leads up to a climax that would make Franz Kafka giggle with delight.

If you can stomach the outrageous satire, you too will giggle with delight at the film's absurdities. That's due to how well-crafted the film is, especially in the exceptional acting. Evelyne Dandry is simply wonderful as the matriarch who initially despairs at her family falling into "moral decline" before accepting it and embracing the radical acts herself. Another plus is the witty script- I laughed continually as the film mocks social norms to the point I don't want to reveal any more jokes as I fear the comedy will be ruined if I spoil it for the unsuspecting viewers.

Sitcom sadly isn't perfect despite its brave transgressions. It doesn't break any new ground - I can think of more shocking films than this one, and Ozon doesn't take full advantage of lighting/staging nor does he exploit the material for all its worth. Characters come and go when being in service to the plot, and key changes occur offscreen to the audience's annoyance. However, it succeeds in what it set out to do: improve upon Teorema's surreal concept and make it insanely funny for all the weirdos out there in the audience.

Another note to consider comes with the phrase "Sitcom" itself. The title naturally refers to those patriarchal-upholding tools of conformity, but Francois Ozon subverts those expectations by making his slice-of-life dramas into an Aristocrats joke a la John Waters. Further more, he advocates tearing down the patriarchy in order for society to progress. In an age where people yearn to be free from being strangled by traditions, Sitcom is certainly admirable for questioning the status quo by making fun of it.

Francois Ozon's "Sitcom" revels in its exaggerated, campy take on the quintessential nuclear family dynamic often depicted in TV sitcoms. Portraying an upper-middle-class family complete with the archetypal troubled kids, an overwrought wife, and a disengaged father whose presence is more about quantity of words than quality of connection, Ozon dives deep into the absurd.

Taking the familiar television family setup, Ozon twists it into a provocative and sexually charged narrative, creating a film that serves as a precursor to the dark, satirical works of directors like Todd Solondz and Yorgos Lanthimos. At the heart of "Sitcom" is a caged rat, a potent metaphor for the repression imposed by patriarchal society. When the metaphorical cage is opened, all societal norms and familial boundaries are thrown out the window, leading to a series of increasingly wild and taboo escapades, from school dropouts hosting orgies at home to incestuous relationships.

Ozon's fearless approach to storytelling underlines the absurdity and hypocrisy of societal norms, pushing boundaries to emphasize the destructive nature of repressed desires. "Sitcom" is a bold examination of the chaos that ensues when these repressions are unleashed, told through the lens of a filmmaker unafraid to mix humor with discomfort.

While "Sitcom" might not cater to everyone's taste, finding its humor and messages either too shocking or outlandish, it undeniably stands out as an entertaining piece of cinema.

If for no other reason, see this movie for the sexy-as-hell Stephane Rideau! Words can not describe him...mmmm...

Anyway, it's an okay movie; completely perverse but I laughed a few times (I have a completely sick sense of humour).

Soooo worth it to see Stephane Rideau in that s&m getup and the yummy erection scene (prosthetic or not...it's freakin' hot)!!!

Sitcom is one of the most shockingly humourous films I have seen in a while. Nonstop laughs from start to finish--the only flaws are the misleading beginning and the strange finale but still tons of fun! I saw this film during a short one-week showing, but ended up ordering the video to show my friends! Definitely worth watching!

The basic setup sounds fun, and it definitely could have been a really memorable dark comedy, but for me they went too far at wanting to be "shocking". I feel like with the whole incest storyline they went too far for a regular audience.

I would only recommend this to people who aren't very bothered by incest I guess.

Francois Ozon's latest film is a disturbingly funny, hilariously unsettling black comedy. Done in mocking emulation of the flat, situation comedy style of American television, the film shows a series of moments in the life of an all-but-ordinary French family.

First of all, if you're expecting ANYTHING like a sitcom, even as a parody, here, forget it. The closest the film comes is in the use of a few stock characters. But the snappy crisp rhythm which can be used as well for satire as straight that marks a sitcom is pretty much absent here. What humor there is is based on pretty easy shots at uptight families, over the top sexual behavior, racial encounters. Much of it is plain confused. Whatever "comic" situations are set up become repetitive. At best this might be regarded as a slightly surreal thriller with a strange premise at its heart. But most of the characters end up as plain unlikable and the narrative flow pretty much gives up midway through. Be warned.

An original and inventive black comedy about a bourgeois family thrown into utter chaos, mostly sexual, after the father brings home a lab rat as a pet. Very twisted and bizarre, with many unexpected plot twists, this movie holds the attention to the very end. Ozon gives nods to Bunuel and John Waters without directly copying either. 'Sitcom' will appeal to fans of either of those directors, or to anyone who likes offbeat movies. Highly recommended!

this film is definitely a strange grotesque comedy. black and predictable in its unpredictability. i would not recommend it to everyone, but i loved it (although there was this particular scene i could not handle to watch... ;) different to these other movies called outrageous and hilarious this movie does not have a complicated, fragmented, highly-detailed plot. it is a simple story easy to tell (quite different form the almodovar-films i love), but just impossible to happen and unusual for films.