25 December 2012. Whether or not one believes in alternative life styles or those not sanction by a traditional religious viewpoint, this movie presents a straightforward and perhaps even an honest experience of tradition meeting un-tradition and the human consequences. Directed in a mainstream, non-art film, the script focuses on some quit socially divisive social issues at least taken from a conservative religious perspective. The tone of the movie is odd as the music and the beginning sequences are suggestive of a light comedy as perhaps these topics of blending religion and the more contemporary societal mores have been treated. Perhaps it is a testament that a more serious, but mainstream approach to the current social and marital issues can be presented in this way.
Unlike the comedy of All Above Steve (2009), light touch of Lars and the Real Girl (2007), the more blended light and serious drama of The Perfect Man (2005), and the more inclusive treatment of Little Miss Sunshine (2006), In & Out (1997), Connie and Carla (2004), Victor, Victoria (1982), or The Birdcage (1999), The Perfect Family plays it much straighter, no pun intended. The Family Stone (2005) has a decent balance of tone and serio-comedy about familial relationships yet in some ways The Perfect Family is much more involved in its depiction of relational disruption and its more emotive/mental edginess that is usually toned tone in most movies or dramatically and icily directed for dramatic shock rather as in such more serious, darker movies as A History of Violence (2005), Eastern Promises (2007) or art movie as Margot at the Wedding (2007) than The Perfect Family's more evolving, sustain realization of personal choices for the mainstream audience.
Elizabethtown (2005) or Georgia Rule (2007) in their simple but plain depiction of relational awkwardness comes close to The Perfect Family in tone and style. Yet perhaps The Human Stain (2003) or American Beauty (2000), The Hours (2002) are the movies that retain their hard-hitting and cinematic edge in revealing the visceral emotional, mental turmoil in dramatic form.
