'The Family Fang,' the story of an eccentric family, features impressive performances
The maddening ties that bind parents and children are the subject of聽鈥淭he Family Fang,鈥� a mostly successful adaptation of the 2011 Kevin聽Wilson novel directed by Jason Bateman and scripted by the playwright聽David Lindsay-Abaire. Bateman also costars, with Nicole Kidman, as聽damaged siblings Baxter and Annie, whose bohemian parents corralled聽them as children into taking part in performance art pieces like a聽sabotaged beauty pageant and a bank robbery.
The parents, in the present-day scenes, are played by Maryann Plunkett聽and Christopher Walken, who is at his best as the lethally oddball Caleb.聽The movie captures so well the push-pull of family dysfunction that, after a聽while, even the Fangs鈥� extreme eccentricities seem routine. And that鈥檚 the聽point: The filmmakers are trying to demonstrate that, no matter what we聽think our family dynamic may be, we鈥檙e all on the same strange spectrum.聽
Bateman is extraordinarily good as the hurt, wary Baxter, a struggling聽novelist, while Kidman, playing an actress past her prime, makes a聽convincing sibling. Her performance is less freeze-dried than usual. The聽film becomes overly inspirational and it does go on a bit 鈥� whenever you聽think it鈥檚 about to end it slides into another scene 鈥� but it successfully聽manages the difficult transition from loopy to tragic to uplifting. Grade:聽B+ (Rated R for some language.)
