Family Law

From Argentina comes the most unassuming of masterpieces. We have three generations of Perelman: Perelman senior, a lawyer who has been around forever and who knows everyone; Perelman, a lecturer in law at university and who is a nice guy but (like all of us) feels that he is a bit of a fraud; and finally Gastón, Perelman’s two-year-old son who is already falling into the clutches of Swiss educators who want to develop his emotions. This is unashamedly a film about men, and a film that may even bring men to tears in getting at the things about the mysterious richness of being a son, a husband, a father—things that guys are never supposed to express. There is no complicated story here, simply ordinary people getting on with the day to day business of living with each other, trying to be themselves, trying to be what others want them to be, trying to do the right thing. This is a small miracle, an immensely emotional film which is not the slightest bit melodramatic.

Family Law is an unusual film about very usual lives: unusual for its delicacy in handling dangerously poignant plot turns, its faith in its audience's ability to dot its own i's, and especially its sense of everyday stoicism.

Indiewire