Sitcom

I am afraid that the first reviewer misses the point completely. This is a very, very funny film in the grand old tradition of farce. It isn't supposed to be 'realistic', it is supposed to be, and is amusing. The acting isn't brilliant, but, again, in farce, that is part of the fun. It certainly cheered me up considerably.

François Ozon's pitch black mickey take is a biting satire on family life and a brash distraction from the shows of it's title. While many sitcom's are monotonous affairs, Ozon's take on the medium is anything but. Despite taking in many of the clichés of the sitcom - stuffy mother, raunchy maid, bored father etc - Sitcom manages to be continually inventive and the way that it exposes the clichés of the genre is both ludicrously ridiculous and harshly disturbing. The French director proves with this movie that he's not afraid to overstep several boundaries and make a film that dares to be different, and for that reason this film will never be universally liked. However, if you can connect with Ozon's vision, you're in for a treat and that was the situation I found myself in! The story follows a father who, after bringing his family a lab-rat for a present, finds his family collapsing around him - his son discovers he's gay, his daughter jumps out of the window and his wife...well, I'll leave you to find that out on your own.

Sitcom is a singularly unpleasant experience. Watching family life deteriorate is a much more gruelling affair than you might imagine, and even though the family and the situation that Ozon has presented are utterly ridiculous; he still manages to inject life into it, which ensures that it hammers home the point that the auteur intended. Whenever I see a film that dares to be different and deliver something that I haven't seen before, I tend to find myself heaping the praise on it and that is certainly the case with this film. You will not find a comedy with a more rotten core than this one and similarly you will not find one that dares to present the utterly ridiculous happenings that this movie thrives on. I don't know how Ozon thought he could get away with some of the things in this film - not just the taboo's he's portrayed, but other things too, some of which are just too stupid to comprehend – but Ozon makes them work! Sitcom is a movie that needs to be experienced, and it's a film that will divide opinions as much as any other movie ever made. And if only for that reason - see this film as soon as possible.

I love Francois Ozon's films. Together with this, I have seen all his feature-length work (Sitcom, Criminal Lovers, Drops Falling On Burning Rocks, Under the Sand, 8 Women, Swimming Pool). "Sitcom" is the film by him that I found the most bizarre and unsettling (even though I had some good laughs). The ending was a bit too much, but otherwise, I quite liked it. The atmosphere and the bizarre events sometimes reminded me of "Criminal Lovers", that he made immediately afterwards, but with more focus on black humor than in the latter.

The whole way through, the story of "Sitcom" reminded me of Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Theorem" (Teorema) - much more than of Bunuel's "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", already mentioned here. In Pasolini's 1968 film, a strange visitor unsettles the life of an Italian bourgeois family: after he leaves, the daughter loses her mind, starts lying catatonicly on her bed and has to be transferred to a mental institution; the mother, in a desperate urge for promiscuity, picks up handsome young men on the streets for sex; the maid goes back to her village and becomes a levitating saint; the son discovers his talent for painting (and probably realizes that he is gay); the father at first seems not to be affected, but then he also succumbs to the influence.

Ozon's film seems to take up this motif and transfer it to a very-very black farce and a parody of American sitcoms (I love the set design with all those bright colors!). People here (especially the mother) always try to "talk things out" like in the sitcoms, but it doesn't really work, because the environment is/has become so different.

At the very end, though, everyone seems to have found themselves at last: from a dysfunctional family, they have apparently become a happy family again - though not exactly in the traditional, conservative way. But the white rat is still lurking everywhere...

An original and inventive black comedy about a bourgeois family thrown into utter chaos, mostly sexual, after the father brings home a lab rat as a pet. Very twisted and bizarre, with many unexpected plot twists, this movie holds the attention to the very end. Ozon gives nods to Bunuel and John Waters without directly copying either. 'Sitcom' will appeal to fans of either of those directors, or to anyone who likes offbeat movies. Highly recommended!

This film is, above all else, a farce. As a farce it works very well and is, in many parts, extremely funny. A regular in Ozon's films, Lucia Sanchez, is excellent as the Spanish maid, and the mother is played to utter perfection by Evelyn Dandry. She is able to portray the utter frustration of any woman with teenage children. Ozon doesn't really cut new ground with this film, with its theme of the disruption of French bourgeois family life, but I don't think that he intends to. The film is funny on its own terms. The notion of Ozon being 'naughty' shines through. Of course, the utter beauty of Stephane Rideau makes the whole thing worthwhile by itself.