Family Law (2006)

David Burman's 'Derecho De Familia' (or Family Law,as it is being distributed in English speaking countries)is a tale of a young man who has become something of a mirror image of his father,another lawyer. The only difference is that Perelman,Jr.teaches law at the local university (never named),while his father,Perelman,Sr. practices law. Both share an office in a building that has seen better days (and is currently being refurbished,due to a cave in of one of the upper floors,leaving both generations of Perelman's out of work). Perelman Jr. has to try & fake the fact that he is out of work,and makes up any excuse to cover up. His wife is something of a "new age" trainer in Pilates (?). All of this (and more)make for a (so called)comedy that never really goes anywhere (but does try like the dickens to mimic one of those French family based films). David Burman writes & directs this mostly unfunny attempts at a comedy on family values that is obviously influenced by the late,great Francois Truffaut,but falls flat. The cast includes,Daniel Hendler,Julieta Diaz,Arturo Goetz,Eloy Burman & Luis Albornoz. Spoken in Spanish with English subtitles. Not rated by the MPAA,but contains some rude language,adult content & toilet humour.

I liked this movie because it's refreshingly different from Hollywood fare. It doesn't slam you in the face with obvious, hackneyed comedy or drama. It doesn't pontificate or send us strong signals from the belly of existential angst, although that is one of its underlying premises.The problem with the film is that it's pretty static; it doesn't gather momentum, it doesn't draw us in with any kind of a solid story. It's a would-be philosophical offering about father and son lawyers (Arturo Goetz and Daniel Hendler respectively), and how a son can aspire to be like his father, but never can. Despite our connection by blood, we can never replicate our parents. In Daniel Burman's film, we must do some thinking, which is fine with me; thinking about a movie is getting rare these days. We fill in a lot of blanks with this film, which is guided by minimalist techniques. Enter another problem: when we don't really feel like filling in the blanks, when the film just isn't that engaging to make us WANT to fill in the blanks, then we're left dangling. 'Dereche de Familia' is interesting because it's off-key and unpredictable. Other than that, it doesn't have much going for it. There is a lot of potential for dramatic or comedic character development, but it just keeps falling short. I was perplexed when Hendler (the son) married a gorgeous pilates instructor (Julieta Diaz). Despite this, we never really see Diaz's hard body, and there is only a hint of sexual activity. If Diaz is set up as a sexy 'other,' why is she just physically ignored? Somebody had to be crass and state the obvious. Welcome to my world.

I saw this movie being shown in a Jewish film festival. Apart from the fact that two of the characters are supposed to be Jewish there is nothing Jewish about it. Nor did there seem to be anything very Argentinian about it. None of the characters is really fleshed out and there is no genuine character development or much by way of plot development. There are little items in the dialogue or glances by the camera that you feel may lead somewhere but never do. For example the lead character's baby sitter goes to sleep in his bed one night - so? Other things just don't gel - his father turns out to have had some terminal illness and is supposedly somehow preparing him to take over the law practice but shows no signs whatsoever of ill health and dies suddenly of unexplained cause - no hospitalisation, no nothing. The presumed main theme of the movie - a father learning to be a better father to his infant son is never really convincingly portrayed. Altogether this is a boring movie about fairly boring lives. My two rating stars are for the production values which are reasonable and the female lead who is quite pretty.

Even the great cinema masters, including Bergman, Kurosawa and Fellini, reached a point where rehashing the same old stories in new containers became old and boring... Too bad that a promising young Argentine director has reached such a place in so few years. What a boring, mindless movie... What a lack of story, what a lack of feelings(and the lack of feelings was no purposefully described).. how little to say None of the characters has been developed; we can't and don't care much for anybody... maybe the best actor, or at least the one with whom we can connect is the 2 or 3 yrs old child... otherwise, the movie is fairly boring... cute in a vacuous sense. I hate to do this: not worthwhile to go to the movies... nor rent.