Affaire de famille (2008)
Directed by Claus Drexel

Film Review

Affaire de famille was presumably intended to be a blackly comedic thriller but the result feels more like a juvenile Hitchcockian take on the theatre of the absurd.  It is hard to know which lets the film down more - its script (which has the sophistication and realism of an episode of Scooby Doo, but with none of the charm), or the half-hearted direction, which relies too much on tired clichés.  The film's biggest flaw, however, is that it just doesn't seem to know whether it's an out-and-out parody policier or a bona fide suspense thriller with a comic edge.

One suspects that Claus Drexel's film debut would have passed almost without anyone noticing had it not been for the acting talent he was able to attract.   André Dussollier, Miou-Miou and Eric Caravaca are all playing this for laughs, which is perhaps what it merits given that none of their characters is even remotely convincing.  This viewing experience really would have been torture if they had tried to play it completely straight, and mercifully none of the cast strays too far into vaudeville territory.

Drexel's attempt to tell the same story from several different points of view is an obvious rip off of Lucas Belvaux's Trilogie (2002) but at least it helps to mask the weak storyline and does serve to introduce an element of suspense and dark humour into the proceedings.  Despite the above grumbles, the film is watchable, and in some of the later sequences Drexel shows some promise, but overall it is just too too hackneyed and mild to make much of a lasting impression.

Film Synopsis

Jean and Laure Guignebon are an ordinary middle-class French couple who lead an ordinary middle-class life in Grenoble.  Laure preoccupies herself with her souvenir shop and daughter Marine, whilst her husband indulges his passion for football at the nearby stadium.  There is nothing remotely interesting about this family - until the fateful night when someone sets fire to the Guignebons' garden shed.  This happens not long after the day's takings are stolen from the stadium after a football match.  When Laure finds a sports bag stuffed with banknotes in Jean's study she draws the obvious conclusion.  He must have been in on the robbery...