OK, so you’ve just spent a weekend wearing clothes your well meaning Aunts bought you, playing board games and spiking the egg nog when no one’s watching, and while feeling all warm and fuzzy on the inside was nice for a while, it is time to crawl back into your dysfunctional hole of a life.
So, on a Monday after Christmas, here is a movie marathon of family discontent.
Pass the Xanax. And the vodka. Stat.
Ordinary People
The original mamma-jamma of dysfunctional family movies.
Mary Tyler Moore sheds her Mary Tyler Moore persona, Donald Sutherland can’t deal and Timothy Hutton as the son that is left (behind) doesn’t stand a chance.
Dinners are never more awkward then when completely silent:
Margot at The Wedding
Noah Baumbach could deserve a dysfunctional movie post of his own (see also: Squid and the Whale….) but Margot and her sibling/marital dynamics take the cake.
As I’ve previously stated:
Baumbach makes angry movies for civilized people.
In them, perfectly well educated, seemingly well mannered (and often unlikable) people fall apart at the seams in their artfully disheveled Brooklyn brownstones, their perfectly manicured small liberal arts colleges and in this case, their family beach homes and it is always a thrill to watch.
And why?
Because well educated people insult each other in significantly more quotable ways, that’s why.
Door in The Floor
Based on (the first portion of) “A Widow for One Year” one of my favorite books by one of my favorite writers (John Irving, whose “Hotel New Hampshire” and “The World According to Gard” could sit neatly here as well) it features a dream life falling apart: a sad wife (Kim Basinger), a philandering but equally sad husband (Jeff Bridges), a sad little girl and a sad young man who steps into their lives for one summer none of them will ever get over.
Suddenly, Last Summer
Montgomery Clift died (suddenly) last summer and his monster of a Mother (Katherine Hepburn chewing all the Tennessee Williams scenery in sight) won’t settle until Elizabeth Taylor (pre Maggie the Cat dysfunction of her own) tells her exactly what happened. And it is everything you expect and don’t expect it to be at all.
Warning: despite amazing pedigree, this is really a bad movie. A hilariously bad one, but a bad one nonetheless.
Upside of Anger
Joan Allen’s husband is missing, she is drinking, her 5 daughters (played by everyone from Alicia Witt to Evan Rachel Wood to Erica Christiansen to Kerri Russell) are all suffering from anorexia and unrequited love and unexpected preganancies, Kevin Costner is living next door and somehow wants to be involved.
Buffalo 66
After Vincent Gallo takes Christina Ricci (whom he’s kidnapped at the start of this movie) to meet his parents (Ben Gazzara and Anjelica Houston) you actually start feeling for the guy. If all he’s turned out to be is a kidnapper, he turned out lucky.
Grey Gardens
Either version.
Rachel Getting Married
This movie almost killed me.
Postcards from The Edge
Meryl Streep is Carrie Fisher, Shirley MacLaine (also great at dysfunction in “Terms of Endearment” playing against Debra Winger) is Debbie Reynolds and Hollywood has both been good and horrible to them.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton feed off of their own madness in this adaptation of Albee’s kick ass play. Never fails to make you cower/cringe/cower&cringe
YOUR PICKS NOW.
This Boy’s Life, American Beauty, Overboard, and Mr. Mom.
December 28, 2009 at 11:29 amSvet, good call on The Door in the Floor! My additions:
The Ice Storm
A Christmas Tale
Fanny and Alexander
Tokyo Story
Secrets and Lies
Cache (Hidden)
The War Zone
December 28, 2009 at 12:41 pmI own “The Door in The Floor” (and half of these movies) and I just love it. But I think a “Widow for One Year” mini series would be amazing
December 28, 2009 at 12:59 pmdamn you alan zilberman and your affinity for rhinos, I was going to mention Secrets and Lies. and good call on Gummo, Michael, that’s one of my favs.
more family dram-uhs:
Rebel Without A Cause
any John Steinbeck turned movie
or Tennessee Williams for that matter
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (common thread in last three selections identified: Elia Kazan had family issues; as an aside, so does Wes Anderson)
The Bicycle Thief
Legends of the Fall
Five Easy Pieces
Eraserhead is pretty much a weirdweirdweird family drama, right?
delicatessen
royal tenenbaums
Winter Passing
Squid and the Whale
fuckin’ Gummo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35Hg8bIFu-A
December 28, 2009 at 11:00 am