Sexual Chronicles of a French Family (2012)

Trust the French to make thoughtful, explicit, ground-breaking cinema. SEXUAL CHRONICLES OF A FRENCH FAMILY is, as the title would suggest, a comic drama about the sex lives of three generations of a close-knit French family, and the various mini-dramas that arise from each. The controversial thing about it is that the sex scenes - and there are plenty of them - are real.In fact, the sex is presented in such an ordinary, matter of fact way, that this is hardly pornographic. It's almost like a documentary in places. The actors, who have no inhibitions whatsoever, happen to be very realistic in their various parts and the way their different lives intertwine is well achieved. Watch out for THE RETURNED's Pierre Perrier, who has a last scene cameo.

Warning: This review includes spoilers! I saw the uncut version. From a straight male point of view there were indeed some scenes with lovely nude ladies who may even have been genuinely aroused by what they were participating in. But! There was a lot of emphasis on male sexuality, by comparison little emphasis on female sexuality. There was a lot of explicit male nudity (genitals), but no explicit female nudity (apart from a short dark scene at the beginning). This was extremely unbalanced. If they want to include scenes like that they should give equal attention to both sexes. Typically they didn't. In the end one male character came out of the closet. But in fact, the whole film had done that already.

The story is simple, just a cross-section of an everyday family with very real sexual scenarios. I was stunned to see such great acting in a cast readily open to perform explicit sex acts. Romain's, the recently turned 18 male lead, very real awkwardness is cringe-worthy and forced out of me an embarrassed laugh. All the actor's chemistry with each other was perfect, I couldn't imagine it done better, because it didn't need to be done better. The film is careful to steer clear of pornographic style and only shows a minimum of explicit acts while remaining so real you may as well be there with them.I'm not giving it a ten only because I felt it didn't challenge me enough as a viewer. Although, If you're on the more reserved side towards sexual expression this may be a very challenging viewing indeed. *side note: Some characters aren't given much development though, but I think too much complexity might detract from the film's simple journey.Highly recommended film

What is interesting is the description of the sexual life of a whole french family living nowadays : from the young teenager who makes love for the first time with her girlfriend, to his grandfather who lost his wife and makes love with a young prostitute.I found the description rather credible and realistic, all the actors are good.I saw the uncensored version which is quite less explicit than many other mainstream movies with explicit sex scenes (like "9 songs" for instance). The DVD issue is more explicit, but most of the versions shown in movie theatre are censored (and rated for a public above 12 in France).the sex scenes are relevant, they are linked to the story and they are neither gratuitous nor vulgar, I think.