Liz Whittemore on Family Therapy (2024) Tribeca 2024

This film orginally appeared at Liz's home REEL NEWS DAILY

Sonja Prosenc‘s Tribeca 2024 film FAMILY THERAPY features a nouveau riche household that operates in rigid formality, slowly cracking upon the arrival of a new member.

The film opens with Aleksander, Olivia, and daughter Agata picking Julien up at the airport. He is patriarch Aleks’s twenty-five-year-old son from a previous relationship. Following an awkward evening, they awaken to loud knocking in the middle of the night, setting off a chain of events that will make or break these four people.

Their home is modern, essentially a glass box with cement walls. The production design team’s selection of art inside the house speaks volumes. They are strategically placed on vast walls, begging for your eyes. The music by SILENCE is based on Henry Purcell‘s King Arthur Opera. This decision creates an entire mood from the first frame. The camera work is delicious.

Mila Bezjak gives Agata a suspicious sass. Her personality gets a boost from her severe hairstyle. Blunt bangs and thick coiffure make her resemble an overgrown doll. Her attention-seeking behavior has everything to do with her parents’ infantilism.

Aliocha Schneider is Julien. Down-to-earth, kind-hearted, edgy, and fearless. Schneider connects with each family member in a layered way. It’s a compelling turn.

Olivia is mean, anal retentive, gallerist. Actress Katarina Stegnar gives off a genuine wicked stepmother vibe, a cover for genuinely feeling powerless. Her arch is visceral.

Aleksander never shuts up. He flaunts his eccentricity most ignorantly, fancying himself a writer despite only writing a single piece twenty years prior. Marko Mandic is loathsome in the best way.

Writer-director Sonja Prosenc does a spectacular job of holding back information, leaving us small breadcrumbs of this odd family dynamic. The symbolism of fracture and subsequent healing comes in multiple genius forms. Bites of fantasy further the nuance of unresolved trauma and the search for joy. FAMILY THERAPY is brilliant stuff.