The Family Fang

Annie (Nicole Kidman) and Baxter Fang (Jason Bateman) are the children of acclaimed performance artists Caleb (Christopher Walken) and Camille (Maryann Plunkett). As children, they were used extensively in their parents work, and as a result have grown into adults full of anxiety and repression. However, when their parents disappear under mysterious circumstances, Annie and Baxter are offered the chance to reconcile their relationship with their past and deal with their unconventional family once and for all. Bateman has chosen a ripper piece of material, based on the book by Kevin Wilson and adapted by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire. Its quirky tone could have resulted in the kind of twee comedy-dramas that independent American cinema churns out en masse every year for the film circuit, but Bateman and Lindsay-Abaire keep a tight focus on the dark undercurrent of the film, a criticism of the idea of art as an excuse for misbehaviour. The humour is pitch black and the criticism is biting, but its always balanced with the human drama - in this case the relationship between Annie and Baxter, siblings who have become each others' lifeboats out of necessity when their childhoods are essentially stolen away from them by their parents.