Everybody in Our Family
By Kit Macdonald
Another essential part of Filmoteca's current Radu Jude season, Everybody in Our Family (2012) is one of the Romanian auteur's most gripping and emotionally volatile works. Set mostly over the course of a single day, it follows divorced father Marius, who hopes to take his young daughter Sofia on a seaside holiday. When his ex-wife and her family obstruct his plans, a seemingly mundane domestic dispute spirals into an increasingly chaotic and disturbing confrontation.
Jude transforms a familiar and potentially mundane post-divorce conflict into a nerve-shredding study of wounded pride, parental love and male frustration. The film’s power comes from its refusal to offer up easy heroes or villains. As Marius, Șerban Pavlu delivers an extraordinary performance in which he shifts from sympathetic victim to frightening aggressor with shocking speed, seamlessness and realism. A marvel of a film that was a great leap forward for Jude and did much to establish him as one of the most vital voices in contemporary European cinema.