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Just perfect...

Expected more

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

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...

This film is Francois Ozon's debut, which made him one of the most promising young directors of Europe. Here we have a story, which can be treated as taken as modern 'The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie' by Luis Bunuel. Here a typical French family alters in the most disturbing way. The whole madness starts when father brings home a lab rat. Next the son at the dinner stands and declaims that since that moment he is a gay. Then his sister jumps out of the window trying to commit a suicide...And so on. And the story keeps going till the unusual end, which contains one of the most bizarre sequences in modern European cinema. Acting is at very high level, and so is the directing. Dialogs are pretty witty and memorable. It is difficult to name a genre of this movie, but the closest is - black comedy.

Just as the universe started with a big bang the comedy SITCOM does likewise and in the aftermath we are introduced to a family in utter chaos, disoriented and maladjusted. However, mother who is the central character believes she can rectify many of the problems. Nevertheless it is a white rat brought home by father that generates some sort of harmony within the household. The comedy moves fast and the laughs are in the lines spoken in dead seriousness by the competent cast. The story jumps from dreams to reality so we are never quite sure where we are. It takes someone like Francois Ozon to put all this on film. This original story is amusing rather than shocking and the sex scenes are not explicit but rely on one's imagination. The boys' group session with the courgettes does not go anywhere and one wonders if the censor has interfered. The big surprise is the giant rat sequence when the mood of the film changes and for some could become scary. I do not want to give away the plot. Suffice to say "We are what we eat". There is more truth than fiction in the film. It is now recognized that the keeping of pets can reduce blood-pressure and bring contentment and extend life-spans. Having peeped into all the bedrooms and seen the goings-on, we come in the end to a tombstone and we see the white rat nosing about. It is good story telling to leave us guessing and wondering. I am sure there are many interpretations. Perhaps mother's psychiatrist could attempt to explain it as he continues to unravel the lives of this tangled family.

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.