Rue Mandar

Three siblings (played by Richard Berry, Emmanuelle Devos, and Sandrine Kiberlain) deal with their mother's death and its chaotic aftermath -- especially the sale of her run-down apartment full of junk and memory. I have never noticed Berry before but he seems to be a big star in French cinema/TV. As the eldest son, he tries to hold the clan together while dealing with his controlling wife. Devos is a therapist who seems more far more disturbed than her patients; she is also an overbearing mother calling her son long-distance at all hours. Kiberlain, as usual, gives the most endearing performance. Here she has to be the straight woman to Devos' extreme neurotic (the kind of role Kiberlain excels in elsewhere). Having lived in Tel Aviv for years as an academic, dressed in ugly blue work pants and nondescript clothes, her character brings an outsider's perspective to this extended, very noisy Jewish family, and in effect serves as the audience surrogate. The dinner party hijinks are hilarious, a hundred times funnier than the Woody Allen flick I just saw. Despite their frequent feuds the three siblings always manage to settle their differences. I don't know if Devos or Berry is Jewish, but all four of Kiberlain's grand parents were Jews from Poland, so this is her home turf. The performances and the situation comedy sustain a film which doesn't have much else going for it. The property in question on Rue Mandar must be very close to a place I once co-rented for a week; it is not far from the Louvre and the Seine. Talk about bringing back memories.