Un air de famille

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Un air de famille
Directed by	Cédric Klapisch
Written by	Cédric Klapisch Agnès Jaoui Jean-Pierre Bacri
Starring	Jean-Pierre Darroussin Catherine Frot
Release date(s)	1996
Country	France
Language	French
IMDb profile

Un air de famille is a 1996 French movie. It was directed by Cédric Klapisch, and written by him, Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri. The movie stars Bacri, Jaoui, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Catherine Frot, Vladimir Yordanoff and Claire Maurier.

It won the César Award for Best Writing, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress.

[edit] Plot

An upper middle-class French family ostensibly celebrates a birthday in a restaurant. In one evening and during one meal, family history, tensions, collective and separate grudges, delights, and memories both clash and coalesce. Indeed, poking each other's sore spots turns out to be the main order of business. Henri (Bacri) runs a saloon that he inherited from his father called "The Sleepy Dad," and in the near-empty bar, he plays host to several members of the family as they mark the 35th birthday of his sister-in-law, Yolande (Frot). Henri's sister, Betty (Jaoui), is 30, single, and not very happy about it; his brother (and Yolande's husband), Phillipe (Yordanoff), runs a growing software company; Mother (Maurier) is the siblings' strong-willed matriarch; and Henri's paralyzed dog is on hand, whom someone describes as "like a rug, but alive." It's not been a good day for most of them: Phillipe is convinced that his business will go out the window as a result of the ugly tie that he wore on television; Betty is depressed about the sad state of her current relationship; Henri has just learned that his wife is leaving him; and Mother is tossing caustic barbs at everyone left and right. Henri's bartender Denis (Darroussin) is the one neutral party on hand, and he provides the voice of reason in the midst of the bickering.