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Review

Chris Vander Stappen, lesbian screenwriter of the critically acclaimed Ma Vie en Rose, assuredly directs this madcap comedy-drama about family dynamics and sexual identity. Set in 1969, the story centers on Sacha, a young Belgian woman who's been living for two years in Montreal with the beautiful blonde Odile, the woman of her dreams. But Odile presents an ultimatum: come out to your parents before man walks on the moon, or else it’s over.

Sacha returns to her Belgian village and family to explain that she won’t be a doctor (she wants to be a photographer) and her lover is a woman. If it was only so simple. For her energetic but dysfunctional family is obsessed with their own dramas. Dwarf sister Elisa, always in the company of her pet fish Jimmy, is obsessed with the possibility that she is adopted; mom frantically cleans every surface, intent on hearing nothing that will ruin her image of a happy family; dad has some kind of affair going on and even grandma has a decades old secret. When Sacha does come out, her revelation opens the floodgates of all of the family’s dormant secrets and obsessions.

A charming tale of tolerance, coming out and the intensity of family life. (French with English subtitles)

 -- Raymond Murray