is hard to be mad at family vanity projects when they are this charming.
Working with your family is always tough. Working with your family within your passion is even tougher. Working with your family within your passion when you have a public persona already makes things messy.
Now throw in murder.
Family Movie, the new film from Kevin Bacon that debuted at SXSW this year, is the definition of a family affair. It was conceptualized by Bacon and his wife Kyra Sedwick as a project for them and their two children, Sosie and Travis, to all work on. All four make up the central cast, the family of Jack Smith (Kevin), a famous Z-tier film director who has spent his life dedicated to making movies on zero money. Now trying to power one last project across the finish line, a murderous cult film called Blood Moon, Jack is trying to hold the project together while the whole family and crew are all burned out.
Unfortunately things get even more complicated when Jack’s wife Ellen (Sedwick) kills their annoying lecherous neighbor. What starts as a dilemma of trying to hide one body quickly escalates as everyone’s secrets come to the surface.Meta projects like this live or die on how game the subjects are to be within the aim of the satire. Luckily the Bacon family all seem to be in on the joke, especially the parents who get to stretch into less familiar territory. Kevin’s Jack is a dedicated auteur, who just happened to never be able to make anything more than cheap garbage. Sedwick’s Ellen is the most vicious version of a protective Mother Bear imaginable.
By comparison, the younger Bacons play much closer to alternate versions of themselves. Sosie plays Ula, an aspiring actress looking to separate herself from her parents’ legacy. Travis plays Trent, the goth son who splits his interests between death metal and martial arts. As a coincidence, Travis also provided the music for the film.
It is impossible to separate the art from the artist here; you are consistently aware that this is a movie about a family on a farm trying to make a movie, but is also a movie that was made on a farm by a family. Your ability to accept the winkiness of that will dictate to some degree your appreciation of the film itself.But in some ways, it is necessary. It creates a naturalistic chemistry between the performers that can’t be taught or directed out. The strongest scenes in the movie are consistently when the family is interacting, because the pattern and squabbles feels transcendent. It’s like blood harmony, but for acting. It is both a product of a family, but also a product of people who are either industry veterans, or literally grew up in the industry. Fortunately, the movie doesn’t just work as a family project. It is funny, charming, gleefully violent and mischievous.
This is propelled by a crisp script from Dan Beers, who both throws in twists and pays them off beautifully, but always keep the center of the story on family dynamics. The script is both knowingly absurd, but also grounded in keeping the center of the frame always on the family and their quest to know each other better.Ultimately it is unfair to wonder if Family Movie would work outside the confines of being a product of the Bacon family. It is precisely because of its origins that it is as effortlessly charming as it turns out to be. But what elevates it above “just” a vanity project is the degree to which it’s impish sense of humor is the beating heart of the film. Yes, the movie can be read as a love letter to and from a very famous pair of parents. But when your love letter is this smile-inducing and wickedly funny, it’s hard to not fall in love yourself.
