FAMILY PORTRAIT Review: A Disconcerting Disappearence Makes a Haunted Gathering

For many families, the yearly portrait is not just a ritual, but an custom inviolate. Maybe there's only one person in the family that actually wants the portrait and might even enjoy the process - but it gets done nonetheless. Not the portrait itself, but the process can reveal so much about the inner workings and tensions of a family, the not-so-secret hierarchies of importance, the moment in time of who is family, and who is excess, who is to be listened to, and who is to be remembered.

Lucy Kerr's feature debut Family Portrait presents a family in just such a state of flux. Following the upper middle class group of three generations as they prepare for this annual event, showcases both the mundanity and the stress of the moment - and not just as a ritual likely wanted only by the family matriarch, but happening just as a certain virus is about to change social and family interactions for the foreseable future.

The film opens with watching this family get together for the previous year's portrait - everyone seems lively and excited as parents corral the children in a local park. But a year later, and the mood feels subdued. Katy (Deragh Campbell) and her boyfriend Olek (Chris Galust) are definitely the odd ones out, ever so slightly shunned for being unmarried and child free. Olek is set to take the portrait, meaning he won't be in it - he's not part of the family, after all. Katy's siblings all seem wrapped in their own thoughts, or ennui, paying only so much mind to their children or each other as necessary, with only the family matriarch Barbara (Silvana Jakich) making sure food is prepared for this day.

But suddenly Barbara is relating important information, in very hushed tones: an aunt has died after a suddenly yet serious illness, caused by some new virus that seems to be spreading rapidly. Given that this is set in 2000, it's not hard to guess, and Kerr uses this to showcase a particular aspect of family life among this class: to not speak of that which is dangerous, which truly threatens, which might disturb the nest of safety they have built on their status and privilege. And so when Barbara seems to just disappear, thus delaying the taking of the portrait, it's only Katy that voices concern.

The entire story takes place in the house and its surroundings - the house being next to a large park, it's easy to feel isolated in the space. But there's also a sense of entrapment. Katy and Olek don't want to stay any longer than necessary, while everyone else seems completely oblivious to the time, the space, or the danger that might be creeping up on them. Everyone seems to have their assigned (and rather gender specific) roles: the women are looking after the children, or talking, or sometimes relaxing by the pool, while the men watch the big football game and talk about war heroes in the family.

Kerr executes a fascinating blend of the mundance with the unsettling. Switching between a camera that sometimes remains stationary as its subjects move in and out of the frame, or following them as if in attachment, or circling as if in scientific examination, sometimes if feels as if we were the newcomer to this family, perhaps a friend invited on a whim and yet mostly ignored. Deeper assessment of the situation leads to reactions like Katy's, which are to be shunned. Katy's reaction to no one listening is understandable - not extreme enough to be be dangerous, but if anyone paid attention, perhaps it would cause the necessary though unwanted seismic shift.

The tension floats between the characters like the wind rising up or as the sun dapples through the trees - they choose to be blissfully unaware, though that bliss seems to hang by a thread. Even when everything seems to finally be happening, the attempt to coral the family, even with members still possibly missing, makes this ritual of the portrait have a touch of the macabre. Is Katy stuck in this loop of waiting? Is each person slowly disappearing from the frame?

Kerr strikes a discomfort in Family Portrait, once that fascinates as she hones in on a specific family moment that nonetheless resonates for anyone who has found themselves at the mercy of time and custom to which they have little interest and yet are a key component.

Family Portrait opens at the Metrograph in New York, on Friday, June 28th, with expansion to Chicago and Los Angeles in July. It will be premiere on Metrograph at Home on July 5th.