Wohne lieber ungewöhnlich (We Are Family, C’est quoi cette familie?)
France/Belgium 2016

Opening 17 May 2018

Directed by: Gabriel Julien-Laferrière
Writing credits: François Desagnat, Camille Moreau, Romain Protat, Olivier Treiner
Principal actors: Julie Gayet, Thierry Neuvic, Julie Depardieu, Lucien Jean-Baptiste, Claudia Tagbo

What could be more chaotic than a patchwork family? Here we have Sophie hooking up with Hugo, who was with Babette, while she was formerly with Claude and then Philippe who was with Madeleine. And then there is Agnès who was together with Paul. “Anyway, relationships only work in films.” The results of this mess are seven children from Oliver, the oldest, to Gulliver, the youngest, as well as Bastien, Clara, Juliette, Leopoldine, and Eliot. They live in an unstable atmosphere, are shuffled from house to house, as well as from piano to chess to dance lessons, never knowing who is responsible. Soon the kids have had enough, (“They can’t keep track of everyone.”) and demonstrate who the real adults are. Under the guidance of Bastian they move into Eliot’s deceased grandmother’s huge apartment. At first, each parent believes the child is with the other parent and only Grandma Aurore senses the situation. The kids distribute a definite schedule of rules and regulations to the parents, indicating hours they must be available to help in various ways. Luckily, the so-called adults slowly catch on to their roles as mature parents and begin to enjoy the opportunities to cooperate and be together.

Director Gabriel Julien-Laferriére said that in France every second marriage ends in divorce. He especially enjoyed working with young actors and said, “Sometimes while filming, the children had better ideas than I did, which improved many scenes.” See the film for fun and some truth about real life. (Becky Tan)