[yasr_overall_rating]
A brother and sister return to their family home in search of their world famous parents who have disappeared.
This is truly an artist’s movie. With Jason Bateman directing and both he and Nicole Kidman producing and starring in their own film, there appears to be a unilateral feel for unchartered territory that makes the absurd seem normal. Kevin Wilson’s best selling novel, ‘The Family Fang’ brings to light the lengths one goes to in order to achieve life goals and stay on a clear path in spite of the collateral damage.
Caleb Fang (Christopher Walken) and his wife Camille (Maryann Plunkett) are hardcore Performance Artists who wish to remain true to their passion throughout their lives. When they have children, Annie (Nicole Kidman) and Baxter (Jason Bateman), their goals are challenged as they come up with what they believe is a foolproof plan that allows them to fake their deaths and ensure the greatest performance act of their lives. Unbeknownst to their kids, they disappear after a staged accident, and it is assumed by most that they have died. Everyone pretty much goes on with their lives except their children who are torn between being sympathetic to an unresolved crime scene or being duped by parents who always had to have the last laugh. Annie simply cannot let go of the fact that the mystery is unresolved and she feels that she can resolve her lifelong psychological issues through the closure of this stalemate in their lives. Baxter, while perfectly capable of going on with his life, feels he must stick with his sister in resolving her issue with her parents so that they both will know what really happened.
The humorous twists and turns that find the siblings getting profound clues at a garage sale of their parents’ belongings, turns into a creepy adventure initiated by the playing of a song titled “Kill our Parents” by the Vengeful Virgins, and a journey that results in them finding their parents along with additional, extended family members that all have become part of the years-long performance plot. The irony of the story is that even after being found and threatened to be exposed, Caleb and Camille continue to seek the fulfillment of their goal by offering no apology, and still continuing to seek asylum regardless of the pain and suffering it has caused.
Christopher Walken is excellent in his role as the passively aggressive, pitchman for artistic expression, and Maryann Plunkett is the doting wife who knows no boundaries for standing by her man. Nicole Kidman and Jason Bateman are extremely comfortable in their roles as a brother and sister who are a little too close for comfort, but the best at being siblings who seem to know one another better than anyone else. While strange in every sense of the word, this film offers positive life lessons that are an integral part of human development and social consciousness. Art in this case, definitely imitates life, and exposes dysfunction in its painfully normal state.
“The Family Fang” opens at the Angelika Film Center in Dallas on Friday, May 13th
