Brilliant and touching

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Family Film (Rodinny Film) is a fairly straight forward Czech drama that examines how a family manages an extreme stressor, coming of age, and perseverance. An apparently well-adjusted couple Igor and Kristyna decide to leave their teen children alone and go off on a lengthy sailing trip in the Indian Ocean with the family dog. Nothing could go wrong, right? Well, the inevitable mishap occurs and then we primarily follow the children as they deal with the fall out. What is wrong with this movie? It seems long, even though it's barely over 90 minutes. Part of the reason for this is that - either by directorial choice or budget - there is little of the action that would almost certainly show up in a Hollywood version of this story (and personally I didn't have a problem with that). More so, however, is that some scenes from the ocean were overly long and could have been edited down with no real loss. What is good? The acting is very good, starting with Karel Roden's Igor. The movie is attractively shot - at times moody and fittingly bleak. And the story keeps you interested, if not on the edge of your seat per se. Will you learn good parenting from this film? Probably not. Is it worthy of an afternoon's viewing? Certainly.

The things that happened in the plot of this film could have been easily summarized in 15-20 minutes. Other that that, long boring camera shots, lots and lots of silence and, above all, a dog on a deserted island filmed for minutes at a time. It felt like watching National Geographic, but with a dog.Because of the overwhelming silence, most of the scenes seemed unnatural. One of the main characters hardly ever said anything, an extra would have done just as well.The only upside of this film was that all of the women in it were beautiful.