Family | Raindance Film Festival 2018

You cannot choose your family, you can’t select who you live with. Lily Brooke knows this all too well. Her father is distant and disappointed. Her mother is aloof and an addict. Her sister is sensitive and sadistic. Her brother is inhumane and incestuous. Lily has lacked control her entire life, and so one late evening finds herself confessing to her therapist (or rather, her therapist’s irritated daughter while her mother is out). Lily may not have had control over her own life, but she has recently taken control over the lives of others. She is confessing how she killed her entire family. FAMILY is an intriguing film, handling a pitch-black topic with the right levels of macabre style and sly humour. Veronica Kader stars as Lily, while also directing and writing the film, producing an utterly unique vision full of twists and brimming with confidence. A fascinating and ambitious work, FAMILY reflects upon themes of choice and identity, of whether people are defined by those around them, or if they tell their own story. While (hopefully) nobody has a family quite like this, the captivating performances and engaging delivery make it a grim funhouse mirror for everyone’s experiences. Bruno Savill de Jong