Family Viewing

Dad seems like a regular, middle class guy, but his penchants for mild sado-masochism and phone sex have driven his wife to leave him. He packes his senile mother-in-law off to a low-rent old people's home, and instals a charming, sitcom-style bimbo to meet his domestic and sexual needs. His son, meanwhile, spends all his free time visiting Granny in the home, where he strikes up a friendship with a young woman who happens to work for the phone-sex business patronised by his father. Egoyan's movie offers a rare - in 1988, unique - blend of black comedy, parody, formal fun-and-games, and emotive drama, and finally proves to have a remarkable range and maturity, giving equal weight to everything from the implications of video surveillance to the plight of elderly ethnic immigrants. You laugh one minute, gasp the next, and grope for the Kleenex moments later.