Rent The Family Friend (2006)

No doubt a masterpiece to some... - The Family Friend review by CP Customer

Why do we watch films? The majority do it as a form of mindless or semi-mindless way of passing the time- it doesn't matter what critics think of the latest Bond or Harry Potter they're guaranteed a huge audience. For the rest of us there are several reasons- to be absorbed, to be stimulated (ie thought provoked), for "feelgood" reasons etc.etc. What makes a film "good" is when it deeply involves or intigues the viewer enough to make it memorable in a positive manner.

"Family Friend" is a film I may have admired more in my younger days & I can imagine long discussions with university friends about the meaning of this & that abstract scene. However when it boils down to it this is a film full of repulsive characters- there is not one character for whom I felt even a grain of sympathy- all of whom are dominated by a sex crazed 70 year old who is a "tailor" (read sweat shop worker) who is a loan shark; he in turn is dominated by his bedridden mother who watches TV all day long & is waited on hand & foot by him. The cast he wears on his arm & loses in the alternative ending is thus deeply symbolic...

Barely a scene goes by without some obvious sexual reference- be it a group of nubile girls playing volleyball or a seduction scene that may or may not be fantasy. How heavily does one have to have the lead character's obesessions rammed down one's throat?

There are some technically brilliant sequences but unless the idea of the film was to invoke nausea in its audience without showing anything overtly nauseating I don't know what the director was trying to accomplish.

Beauty and the Beast - The Family Friend review by TE

Not Paolo Sorrentino's best film (that would be either 'The Great Beauty' or 'Consequences of Love') but an intriguing story full of the Italian director's trademark visual flair. The narrative has echoes of fairy tales, like Beauty and the Beast, and of the Elizabethan plays of writers like Ben Jonson.

The "Beast" here is superbly acted by Giacomo Rizzo, who relishes a script full of pithy one-liners.

The sheer stylishness of Sorrentino's films sometimes threatens to overwhelm the content, but here he maintains a good balance between playful imagery and moral seriousness. There is also plenty of well chosen music and infectious dancing, things which feature strongly in his true masterpiece, 'The Great Beauty'.