Hereditary experiments – Newspaper Kommersant No. 41 (7486) of 03/13/2023

At the box office – the comedy “The Bad Family” (The Estate) by Dean Craig, better known as the screenwriter of Frank Oz’s film “Death at a Funeral” (2007). Craig, a master of nauseating gags and feigned misanthropy, is true to his signature style. At a glance Mikhail Trofimenkov, this fidelity or, if you like, the obstinacy of the director is the only thing for which he can be respected if desired.

Dean Craig owns the author’s technique, which allows him to weed out his audience. The trick is to insert a physiological joke of such a nature at the very beginning of the film that “not his” viewers run out of the hall, and only those who are ready for further experiments on their nervous system remain.

In “Death at a Funeral” such a joke was a powerful defecation of a senile uncle in a wheelchair. In The Very Bad Family, the heroines run around with a duck overflowing with Aunt Hilda’s (Kathleen Turner) urine. Those who have survived this running around are already overwhelmed by Craig’s full-fledged disclosure of the theme of the unsuccessful onanism of the old sex maniac Bill (Danny Vinson), and verbal humor, sustained in the genre of “if you weren’t my aunt, I would have planted you.”

But in the end, the notion of good or bad taste is double-edged. Vulgarity, though not in Craig’s case, can itself be an aesthetic category. The “very bad family” is very bad, not because it is turned to the “bottom of the body”. The main sin of the director is elsewhere.

The Englishman Craig filmed a comedy in New Orleans on a typically British theme of chasing an inheritance. The layout is like in a classic farce. There is a vicious and rich hag Hilda, who has nothing left to live. And there is a horde of her nieces, nephews, and their loved ones competing to court the dying witch for her fortune.

Leading the crowd are hysterical sisters Macy (Toni Collette) and Savannah (Anna Faris). These owners of a failing family cafe have the manners of portside chavs. Plus their half-sister, Ellen (Kayla Monterroso Meia), whose head is crowned with menacing ram’s horns: the gluttonous girl went crazy on the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy game. Plus a sexually over-anxious Dick (David Duchovny). Plus New York bitch Beatrice (Rosemary DeWitt) with chef husband James (Ron Livingston). Henpecked James will be the only person involved in this violently crazy herd, who will leave the film in time.

Moreover, the same Bill is the school sweetheart of Hilda. Accidentally learning about their attraction half a century – at best – ago, Macy and Savannah will try to put it on Hilda’s bed: they say, in gratitude for such a gift, the aunt will give them preference in choosing heirs. It doesn’t matter if Bill shows up in a stinking sex-criminal rehab slum: he can be washed and dressed. The trouble is that teenage feelings are immortal: Bill’s prospects will be the most promising.

But the genre secret of the farce about the struggle for inheritance lies in the contrast between the external gloss of the rivals and their internal scum. The masks of civilized people should gradually fall off their rivals, even if for the sake of a millionth fortune they are ready to ruin their aunt from the very beginning. However, according to the laws of the genre, they must wear these masks at least for some time so that ghoul fangs do not peek out from under the strayed masks from the very first frames. No, no, we understand that we have ghouls before us, but the rules of the game require even ghouls to observe the rules of behavior in a good society for some time. The inevitable fight, if not shootout, between anti-heroes is only comical when the disguises are dropped.

Craig has no contrast between appearance and essence. Initially, a crowd of degenerates and habalok appears before us, the only driving feeling of which is greed, greed and again greed. Even so, they do not even try to hide the nature of their sudden outbreak of love for Aunt Hilda. The pupils are constricted with greed, the foam bubbles on the lips, as if they were all bitten by a mad dog. The fingers cramp with greed, the linguistic wealth of barbs exchanged by potential heirs would be the envy of any bum.

However, A Very Bad Family is a rare example of a film that benefited from Hollywood’s imposition of ethnic quotas. One of the rambunctious sisters has an African-American admirer, Jeff (Gichi Gamba). A simple working guy, inexperienced in the greedy abomination of being, sentimental and incredibly tearful. Well, how not to cry if you are going to be transferred to work in Alaska, and you don’t even have a “warm coat”. Or catching the bride with all her related Caudle for ugly showdowns? So it’s easiest for the viewer to identify with Jeff and cry, cry, cry. Well, don’t laugh at this.