Cinema
All Happy Families
Haroula Rose (director)
(studio)
15 (certificate)
90 (length)
14 March 2025 (released)
13 March 2025
I’ve been watching Schitt’s Creek recently for at least the fourth time of asking as I’d difficulty getting past the first couple of episodes. Persevering, its fine, well-acted solid characters and writing. What I don’t think is that it is very funny.
That’s very much the feeling watching All Happy Families. There’s nothing basically wrong with the set-up, a divided family reunite to get an apartment ready for rent. The writing is solid, the situations believable and the acting good. But as a comedy, or a 'feel good movie', it left me cold.
At the core are the Landrys a semi-dysfunctional family that is still on talking terms. Younger brother Graham (Josh Radnor) has the responsibility of renting out an apartment that his parents have given to him and his brother Will (Rob Huebel). There’s an element of competition here with Will a successful soap actor and Graham who didn’t build on his talent as actor and turned to writing.
Mother Sue (Becky Ann Baker) and father Roy (John Ashton) are going along to help out. Sue recently retired, had a very unpleasant experience with her now ex-boss. John is an unreconstructed male with booze and gambling issues. Lob in an old flame, a trans daughter and various other things and there’s a cacophony of problems mixed with emotions.
Directed by Haroula Rose, co-written with Coburn Goss, All The Families works well as a drama about a family with some deep issues to sort out and new ones to contend with.
The most interesting are the sibling rivalry and their parents. The latter with increasing problems at an age when they really be looking towards taking it easy but having to continue working.
This is where Sue comes in as the sensible one. She accepts and understands her trans grand-daughter and knows how to handle her misogynist ex-boss. Roy is the polar opposite and cynically written as a character to bounce prejudice and ignorance off.
Around Sue her children are fighting and her husband is drinking and discovered gambling aps. Great drama and wonderfully played out by the cast but barely a smile other than when plumber Phil (Antoine McKay) is present.
All Happy Families will be in cinemas on 14 March from Bulldog Film Distribution.
That’s very much the feeling watching All Happy Families. There’s nothing basically wrong with the set-up, a divided family reunite to get an apartment ready for rent. The writing is solid, the situations believable and the acting good. But as a comedy, or a 'feel good movie', it left me cold.
At the core are the Landrys a semi-dysfunctional family that is still on talking terms. Younger brother Graham (Josh Radnor) has the responsibility of renting out an apartment that his parents have given to him and his brother Will (Rob Huebel). There’s an element of competition here with Will a successful soap actor and Graham who didn’t build on his talent as actor and turned to writing.
Mother Sue (Becky Ann Baker) and father Roy (John Ashton) are going along to help out. Sue recently retired, had a very unpleasant experience with her now ex-boss. John is an unreconstructed male with booze and gambling issues. Lob in an old flame, a trans daughter and various other things and there’s a cacophony of problems mixed with emotions.
Directed by Haroula Rose, co-written with Coburn Goss, All The Families works well as a drama about a family with some deep issues to sort out and new ones to contend with.
The most interesting are the sibling rivalry and their parents. The latter with increasing problems at an age when they really be looking towards taking it easy but having to continue working.
This is where Sue comes in as the sensible one. She accepts and understands her trans grand-daughter and knows how to handle her misogynist ex-boss. Roy is the polar opposite and cynically written as a character to bounce prejudice and ignorance off.
Around Sue her children are fighting and her husband is drinking and discovered gambling aps. Great drama and wonderfully played out by the cast but barely a smile other than when plumber Phil (Antoine McKay) is present.
All Happy Families will be in cinemas on 14 March from Bulldog Film Distribution.
