You Can Choose Your Family
SXSW Conference: World Premiere Red Carpet
Zach Theater, March 11, 2018
Review by Stacey Lovett, Photography by Jim Chapin
You Can Choose Your Family is a comedy of errors of the attempts of an overbearing father, Frank (Jim Gaffigan), to cover a lie he’s been living over the past couple decades.
As director Miranda Bailey’s feature narrative debut, this film both favors and survives on the character interactions she tends to favor in the film world. The curmudgeon ketchup heritor dad extends his superiority (complex) into his family life controlling a rebellious teen son, Philip (Logan Miller), undervalued wife Laura (Anna Gunn), and outspoken young daughter, Lib (Emerson Tate Alexander), all the while covering up the fact that he has a second family with whom he interacts within more dynamic interpersonal relationships. When Philip unexpectedly uncovers his father’s secret, he’s faced with uncovering the truth or extorting the farce as he chooses the latter and builds an inadvertent, warped relationship at last with both his dad as well as his new-found half-siblings.
As Philip is working through the typical dilemmas that accompany one’s coming of age, he’s faced with having to unravel a greater identity of himself and his father which leads to the understanding of a lot he had previously questioned and questioning a lot he has recently discovered. The underlying comedic relief lightens all of the dysfunction and manages to toggle the degrees of lovability of the characters involved in this unconventional relationship dynamic throughout the feature. Gaffigan cast as the unlovable protagonist brings a familiarity to the viewer and the natural lovability in his humor dilutes the contempt of Frank’s character to the point of finding humor in the entire situation, even as it completely unravels by the end.
The antithetic theme that Bailey weaves throughout the film, in both the characters and the state of affairs, presents a constant inquiry of our perception of right and wrong when strong feelings, like that of familial bonds, are brought into question
About the Film:
Director: Miranda Bailey
Producer: Karen Kehela Sherwood, Amanda Marshall, Miranda Bailey
Screenwriter: Glen Lakin
Cinematographer: Yaron Scharf
Editor: Jeffrey M. Werner, ACE
Production Designer: Javiera Varas
Music: Craig Richey
Principal Cast: Jim Gaffigan, Logan Miller, Anna Gunn, Samantha Mathis, Alex Karpovsky, Hayes MacArthur, Michelle Hurd
Additional Credits: Co-Executive Producer: Danielle Blumstein
Synopsis: It’s 1992, the year Grunge music becomes mainstream hitting middle American teenagers directly in their angst. Phillip longs to leave his small town for music school in The Big Apple. His dreams are dashed when his overbearing father, Frank, played by Jim Gaffigan, forbids it. In retaliation for his father’s dictatorial parenting, he sneaks away for a wild spring break. However, when he crosses state lines he instead finds a charming lake community where he spots his father with another woman. Turns out, his father lives in this town and has an entire other family. With this new heartbreaking information, Philip realizes he can wallow in his father’s deceit or take matters into his own hands.
YOU CAN CHOOSE YOUR FAMILY: RED CARPET PHOTO GALLERY
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