Private Property

Aroview: Isabelle Huppert is held to emotional ransom by her two grown-up twin sons in this ‘Mexican standoff’ of family dysfunction and domestic disturbance.

Superbly and unobtrusively observed, Belgian dir. Lafosse watches as the tensions between Huppert’s divorced mother – desperate to start a new life with her new lover – and her pair of dependent, man-child sons (Dardenne Brothers fixture Jeremie Renier, and real-life sibling Yannick) quietly simmer, before boiling over in a violent, understated surge. The film is framed and edited as such that it is never comfortable or pedestrian in tone, resulting in a tense, deceptively fierce chamber piece guided by the faultless acting of Huppert and co.

NZ International Film Festival 2007

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