Argentinean writer/director Pablo Trapero (El Bonaerense, Crane World) takes to the road in Rolling Family. Emilia (Graciana Chironi) is the matriarch of a family living in Buenos Aires. When she learns that her sister's daughter is getting married, she gathers the whole family for a trip to her hometown of Misiones, on the border of Brazil. One of her daughters, Marta (Liliana Capuro), is married to Oscar (Bernardo Forteza). Marta calls him "Fatso," and he owns the RV the family uses for the
trip. They have a teenage son, Gustavo (Raul Viñona), and a little boy, Matias (Nicolás López). Their older daughter, Paola (Laura Glave), ends up joining the party at the last moment when she tearfully walks out on her druggie boyfriend, Claudio (Federico Esquerro), and shows up on the family's doorstep in tears with her infant son. Also on board is Emilia's other daughter, Claudia (Ruth Dobel), and her husband, Ernesto (Carlos Resta). They bring their teen daughter, Yanina (Marianela Pedano), who brings along a friend, Nadia (Leila Gomez). Complications arise as soon as the trip begins. In addition to the problems that might be expected (car trouble, a run-in with the police), relationships get tangled. The boy-crazy Yanina aggressively pursues her cousin, Gustavo, who is more interested in Nadia. Claudio catches up with the family on his motorcycle, and gets into an altercation with Oscar. Things get even more heated when Ernesto begins flirting with Marta, his sister-in-law. All these problems surface with the entire family jammed into a small space, putting the entire trip in jeopardy. Rolling Family was shown by the Film Society of Lincoln Center at the 2004 New York Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi
Director-writer Pablo Tapero keeps the proceedings low-key and realistic. He doesn't hit you over the head with his ideas, yet he manages to say a lot about human nature.
Proves that Americans don't hold the patent on familial dysfunction, but it's also a sincere personal essay about writer-director Trapero's Argentinean family.
The cast doesn't look like a troupe of actors; it could easily be taken for an ordinary family with plenty of physical and psychological bumps and bruises, but always loving.
Trapero focuses on hazy morning sunrises and landscapes rushing by, and the way he frames the action in that tiny camper is like an extended, bravura stunt.
The cast is as spiritedly naturalistic as Guillermo Nieto's cinematography, but there's no sense of place (let alone insight), and for a road movie that's a fatal flaw.
The film sets up a familiar dichotomy: traditional values, common sense, and a sense of nature, contrasted with urban sophistication, neurosis, and selfishness.
(***): Good cast and I liked the direction and cinematography. Pretty much what I thought it was going to be, and I enjoyed it for that.AKA: Familia Rodante
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