In the Family

Definitely one the best films I've ever experienced. Beautifully written, directed and played out by each and everyone. Patrick's way of telling a story is a league of its own and there's not many films I know that uses the art of simplicity to make this a screen gem that is hard to ever forget in my lifetime. Thank you Patrick for having me on this ride. I'm truly humbled. Its films like this that's Oscar worthy that slip by the cracks of the selection panel that the world will regret not giving it its due. Disclaimer: I don't know Patrick BUT I do anything to shake this man's hand.

This could've been a good film yet the acting by Wang is poor. He should've stuck with Directing on this film. The young boy is a better actor. It's also a bit slow. I don't have 5 lines to fill up that's it it's just a slow and poorly acted film. I think if they would've put another actor in the lead it might have been a better film. Wangs southern accent is a bit forced as well.

NOW before I go any further, I will say this: maybe it's not everybody's kind of film. It is long (3 hours) and VERY slow. It's a bit of a gay film, although homosexuality doesn't seem to be an issue. Two guys are in a relationship, one of them (Cody, very, very cute!) has a son. They raise him together. The son is played by 6 y.o. Sebastian Banes, who is terrific. Anyway Cody dies, and according to his will made years ago, his sister is supposed to take care of the kid. The other guy wants to keep him. It is a journey through that. The camera is usually still, and the scenes are more often than not, single shots (long takes? Well "plan séquence" in French, look it up): no cuts, no interruptions, for 3 or 4 minutes, one is 9 minutes! (one with the kid lasts 2 or 3 minutes, and he performs it to perfection.) Of course it is hard to do, because everything has to be flawless for the whole sequence. But it gives the impression of "real life". I would describe "In The Family" as "adult": by that I mean that eventually we don't even follow a plot; we follow characters through a slice of life. No spectacular images, no special effects, and no witty dialogue (God knows that this has been in very short supply for the last 20 years!): it is about people, being human, feeling. I like Roger Ebert's review: "In the Family" is a long film, and truth to tell, could have been made shorter. (One dimly lit confrontation between Joey and a key participant seems unnecessary.) That said, I was completely absorbed from beginning to end. What a courageous first feature this is, a film that sidesteps shopworn stereotypes and tells a quiet, firm, deeply humanist story about doing the right thing. It is a film that avoids any message or statement and simply shows us, with infinite sympathy, how the life of a completely original character can help us lead our own. Bottom line, be warned: it is long, it is slow, it is "day to day" regular life, there is nothing "out of this world" about it... and it is wonderful. (96% on Rotten Tomatoes, so don't be fooled by the meager 7,3 on IMDb ). Patrick Wang has given us a wonderful film, dare I say a masterpiece? And it deserves to be seen.

This film is certainly not for everyone, at almost 3 hours length, with minimal soundtrack and mostly static shots. But I sat riveted until the end, as did most of the audience in the theater. The plot sounds melodramatic: a gay Asian man fights for the custody of the son he shared with his deceased lover. But writer/director Patrick Wang, who seems clearly influenced by the understated Yasujiro Ozu and Ang Lee, avoids the easy moral conflicts. Instead, he focuses on the daily lives of mostly average and good hearted people. There are no stereotype villains here. Instead of a Hollywood court battle, we have an almost documentary like deposition meeting that still manages to be dramatic and emotionally true. The cast is uniformly terrific, especially young Sebastian Banes as Chip and Brian Murray as the lawyer. Certain quietly powerful scenes still stay with me, like the kitchen scene post-funeral and Chip replaying the audiotape of his father's voice calling his name. Patrick Wang will be a talent to follow!

You can and should read the many reviews and it'll give you a sense of this movie. Here's my takeaways. First, I just wanted to know if the folks on the screen knew that they were being filmed. I'm not trying to be cute, but what I mean is this was a breathtaking experience of looking at real life, as it happened, to real people in real time. It doesn't get better than that. I'm of an age where I've watched movies of three hours. Most were torturous. Some superb. Either of the two still felt like three hours. Except here! I was so captivated from the get go to the end and I could have kept on watching. When it ended, I saw it was almost 4AM - Quickest three hours, I was so absorbed and can still feel for Joey and Cody and Chip, as if they were IRL Friends. My topper most of the topper most rating is 9 and this deserves every bit it, actually a 9.9 if we used decimals. This was that good. Surprised this wasn't recommended or suggested. I heard about in a French Reviewer's review on "Any Day Now" - Happy I translated it to English allowing me to find this hidden gem.

I found this film nothing short of amazingly moving. Patrick Wang blew me away by not only writing the film, but also directing, producing, and starring in it! It is a movie about love and struggle and fighting for what you know in your heart. I enjoyed the film because it didn't rush things, it took its time in letting the characters as well as the audience comprehend the situations as the story unraveled. It is said that, "The only thing stronger than fear is hope," and if there's one way to show that, its through this movie. Not only does the main character, played by Wang, have to deal with being gay in this day in age, he experiences even more turmoil as he continues to lose those close to him. It's a film about believing in hope to pushing yourself to the limit until you can't any longer, but making sure not to lose yourself along the way.

'In the Family' is producer, writer and director Patrick Wang's first feature which focuses on the conflict between a gay parent, Joey, who has lost his partner, Cody, in a car accident and Cody's sister and brother-in-law, who gain custody of Joey's six year old child, Chip, after it's discovered that the deceased partner never updated his will. 'In the Family' feels like it's based on a real-life story but Wang indicates he got the idea from his dealings he had with a civil rights lawyer. A lawyer figures prominently in the action of the last third of the film played by an excellent Brian Murray, who basically uses his 'people skills', to successfully re-unite Joey with the child, who was legally 'abducted' from him. The film's major shortcoming is that it's almost three hours in length and sometimes moves at a glacial pace. That's because director Wang has a fondness for long takes. Sometimes they work: when Joey learns of partner Cody's death, the camera fixates on Joey from behind, standing in shock at the hospital, and the full import of the tragedy is felt, despite the lack of any sound on the soundtrack. Other times, one wishes that Wang employed a little bit more judicious editing, to move things along a tad bit more briskly. Wang does an excellent job in humanizing his protagonist, Joey, the well-adjusted Tennessee contractor, who ends up bewildered by the selfish actions of his in-laws, who take his child away from him, without regard to the feelings of a man who has been a good father for six years. We can infer that sister-in-law Eileen's decision to take Chip away from Joey is based on her disdain for his homosexuality. The prejudice against Joey extends to the community-at-large, manifested by the multitude of attorneys who refuse to take his case. There's one excellent scene where Joey is referred to an attorney by a friend who turns out to be anything but sympathetic. He tells Joey, "that kind of stuff" (meaning gay relationships with their attendant sexual mores), will be rejected out of hand by any Judge in the State of Tennessee. 'In the Family' ends on a happy note, after Joey offers to restore an old book for kindly retired attorney Paul Hawks (Brennan). Hawks reminds one of the homespun Judge, Joe Welch, who presided over the Army-McCarthy trials during the 50s; he's drawn to Joey, and willing to come out of retirement, since he can see this is a decent man who has been wronged. Hawks smartly avoids dealing with the Tenneesse judiciary directly and manages to convince Joey to proffer up an unusual gambit: in exchange for a deposition, Joey is willing to cede the house formerly owned by partner Cody, which he's been living in, since his in-laws allowed him to stay there, following Cody's death. The deposition is really an opportunity for Joey to plead his case to his in-laws, and for them to realize that they were all wrong about Joey, and what kind of person he is. The attorney for the in-laws attempts to impugn Joey's character by emphasizing that he acted out as a twelve year old while in a reform school, but that behavior backfires, as both Eileen and her husband realize that their attorney's behavior was inappropriate. All's well that end's well, when Joey is reunited with Chip at film's end. Presumably, the bitter recriminations between both parties involved, have been resolved, and Joey will at least have visitation rights, if not getting to act as Chip's regular father, again. 'In the Family' ends up as a sensitive meditation on an unusual child custody case. Creator Patrick Wang shows real talent for coming up with a very realistic plot as well as directing all the actors (including himself) with great sensitivity. If you're willing to put up with slow pacing in spots, you'll be rewarded with not only a grand plea for 'tolerance' but a strategy for reconciling deeply estranged family members, who at first glance, have little chance of re-establishing communication with one another.

Joey Williams (Patrick Wang) and Cody Hines (Trevor St. John) are an interracial gay couple raising Cody's son Chip (Sebastian Banes) living in the American South. When Cody dies, his family and Joey slowly come apart resulting in Joey losing Chip. The best thing about this is that it's not a melodrama where somebody is a cartoon villain. It is heart breaking at times. The ending is a tear jerker. The story is important, and compelling. However, it must be judged as a movie and not as a social advocacy. For a first time indie, Patrick Wang does a great job of writing and directing. The biggest problem is the lack of editing. At 169 minutes, it is insanely long. There are long moments of nothing scenes. Patrick have these unthinkable long unimportant takes. It begs to be chop in half. It is possible to allow people time to sit and think. But it is not a good idea to force people to sit through nothing. When this movie works, it breaks your heart. When it doesn't work, it's unbearably boring.

There is a fine line that has to be walked whenever talking about gay rights in a film and Patrick Wang walked it like a champion. In the Family is a story about a father, played by the director, Patrick Wang, who loses his life partner, played by Trevor St. John, in a tragic car accident and is left alone with their son, Chip. The movie is a true work of art from beginning to end. There is so much said in this movie about what family is and what it means to be family. In the Family also takes a deep look into what is love, how you should mourn for a lost loved one, and how to get back to the normal routine of life. Patrick Wang breaks new ground in getting himself and his actors to display the truest emotions that make up the very core of what it means to be human. As the film progresses, you can see a change in all the characters as they try to adapt to life once again. The cinematography of the film is so simplistic that it makes the movie all the more real and beautiful, almost as if the audience is poking their heads into the life of a man who is thousands of miles away. This emotionally touching film deserves all of the praise it has been getting and it can definitely be said that In the Family is one of the most moving American indie of this year.

This is an original, quietly powerful first movie by Patrick Wang. A true work of art, showing the power of moral justice over legal justice. The climactic scene in the 'courtroom' is amazing. Joey's achingly simple openness is how I want to be. I didn't find it political, or PC or non-PC. It's just (just! how rare) a story about some good people having to resolve important conflicts. If I have a criticism it is that the sound was muddy and there was a little too much 'sound design'...footsteps, table settings, etc. were much too noticeable; voices not so clear. And yes, it could have been a little tighter in the first half - somewhat slow. But these are minor cavils about a wonderful film