Familia (2005)

"There aren't many ingredients writer-director Louise Archambault leaves out of "Familia," a dramedy that certainly doesn't lack ambition, centered on a dysfunctional Quebec family. The well-cast ensembler's main flaw is lack of a consistent tone to bind its disparate elements: [The film] would play much better as an ironic Altmanesque comedy, since its moments of pure drama are the weakest. Still, this is a largely entertaining feature debut..."

"Louise Archambault's debut feature won the Best First Feature award at Toronto (2005) and scored eight nominations in Canada's Genie Awards, and won the Claude Jutra Award for her. And indeed, it's an impressive debut, both the screenplay and the direction delivering a decent payload of emotional pressure points about modern parenting. But it's not just about parenting; the complex layers of the screenplay, which make it so effective, deal with all the themes that touch us as we move through the generational stage of our lives."

"This is a movie of luminous emotional intelligence which, as the title and opening sequence suggest, is interested in whether humans are genetically programmed to be who they are or whether our nature is learnt."