When Joseph Returns

In the East European tradition of low-key, observational cinema, blending naturalistic acting styles into workaday urban backgrounds. Middle-aged woman shares small city apartment with new daughter-in-law while merchant seaman son is at sea. They soon find themselves on an emotional collision course: the older woman's furtive liaisons, and the girl's more open if bewildered drift into promiscuity, nurture mutual accusations of hypocrisy. The film's harmonious resolution rather belies what has gone before (the intense antagonism and misunderstanding that grows between generations); but writer/director Kézdi Kovács displays a special feeling for everyday lives forever skirting boredom, and draws well-pitched performances from Monori (the daughter-in-law) and Ruttkai (the mother).