‘Family Time’ Review: Finnish Family Portrait Balances Christmas Cheer and Domestic Discord
variety.comDennis Harvey Film Critic With its stationary long-shots of domestic life, “Family Time” is like the “Paranormal Activity” of dysfunctional-holiday-gathering movies: There’s a sense of spying on people who don’t realize they’re under a microscope.
Of course, Tia Kouvo’s debut feature is duly scripted, directed and professionally acted. But her approach is so effectively low-key, you might occasionally forget you’re watching a staged fiction.
There’s no new ground broken by this seriocomedy of three generations in one ordinary clan enduring each other over Christmas, then glimpsed in their separate lives afterward.
Yet the canny level of observation — at once casual, caustic and empathetic — makes for a film that adds up to considerably more than the sum of its seemingly offhand parts.
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