Let’s start with some fellow members’ input which is probably the only way I can write about this movie.
- Harmless and Pointless
Wasn’t it just? I did laugh once so I cannot say I was totally horrified by the whole thing.
Harmless = feel good (perhaps you did?) but this was the kind of movie that used to turn up on SBS at 9.30pm, watched by families killing time until later in the night when the late Les Murray introduced fud-ball from some far distant land.
Pointless? Definitely.
2. “Nearly the same score I gave Dunkirk”
Prue Chaffey was vindicated in this remark by movie site IMDb whose viewers have so far rated the film as 7.4/10. The same site’s viewers rate Dunkirk 8/10. Audiences like Demain Tout Commence (Two is a Family).
Another site, Rotten Tomatoes, has a 7.8/10 audience rating. Conversely critics recorded by the same site are less than half that appreciative at 3.8/10.
3. Lack of continuity
Just how did Samuel (Omar Sy) and his non-biological, dying daughter (intended spoiler so you don’t go to see it) Gloria (Gloria Colston) get from London back to the Mediterranean without passports? I’m sure there were many other improbabilities in there but, hell, we all grew up on James Bond films so we can’t be too harsh.
According to the link below, Two is a Family is a remake of the Spanish language film Instructions Not Included (2013) made in Mexico.It was a major hit. Also Three Men and a Baby (1987) came to mind.
4. Are the French copying the Americans instead of the other way around?
Therefore, this proved a pretty close insight into the problem.
Come on Frenchies, for decades you’ve been providing the Septics with comic plots for them to butcher in their remakes. Why go the switcheroo?
5. What was the film trying to be: comedy, drama or message film?
Unfortunately it tried all three and came up light. The comedy was wan; the drama (even the usually reliable courtroom scenario) seemed to be hurried through; and the message? Can’t help you there as I was busy on my phone helping my Air BnB customer work the Netflix. Seriously, was there a message?
6. The dancing?
Samuel and Gloria kept dancing. Was it a bit of Bollywood on the Thames? Perhaps it was Samuel’s repressed missing of his usual partying partners at the all-night rages he attended before his daughter came into his life.
7. Mum’s morals
Kristin (Clemence Poesy) returns eight years after abandoning Gloria to Samuel and gains custody. It seems she was rather promiscuous at a young age. Who said the law is an ass?
8. Why Bernie
Stereotypical, lustful gay man Bernie (Antoine Bernard) is the fairy godmother to Samuel and Gloria. Was he in it for laughs? If so, they fell fairly flat although I liked his performance.
9. Language barrier
OK you’re black and you’re sharp and you get stranded in London. Eight years later, you still don’t know a word of English? That’s fairly implausible. In fact if I was one of those politically correct nut cases, I would even suggest this was a comment on the lack of intelligence of the immigrant French black man. Of course it wasn’t, it was a plot device so Gloria could be his interpreter but it still seemed strained.
10. Another opinion
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/two-is-a-family-954996
Score: 2
I WRIGHT 