Just a bad movie...


The movie starts out with a feel like they're just documenting holidays and birthdays, but, when the father becomes obsessed with filming everything, it just loses touch with reality. He scolds his children through the lens and we're supposed to accept that as believable.
And then both parents break the fourth wall by talking into the camera - who are they now talking to?? The mother seems to be trying to do a case study, but any good psychologist worth her degree is going to know that you can't diagnose and dose your own kids! Not only is it unethical, but it's also against the law. Not to mention that she has absolutely no reaction when she catches him leaping out of his kid's bed in the middle of the night! She blames him for biting the kids, but she never says anything about him possibly being a pedophile.
Someone else on the board suggested that the kids are adopted and I can accept that explanation since the parents use the kids as little more than props in these movies. It's less him documenting family fun than it is him goofing off
with a camera and annoying his family.
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I ain't your friend, palooka.

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It's a home movie, there is no fourth wall. it's all for us! At the end the mother says to him, they aren't going to show anyone, and they are talking to themselves.

This lead me to conclude, as I suspected from the beginning, that his obsession with the camera was a cry for help. His "goofing off", was a desperate attempt at optimism. From the beginning we learn the kids ain't having any of it. But he still tries....

The wife did make mention of him being abused and therefore possibly having a predisposition to abusing his own children. She didn't actually blame him for biting the kids, she concluded that they had bit each other. We weren't meant to work that one out ourselves, I don't think. Although I came to the conclusion he jumped into bed with them drunk, and didn't realise til the light was on, that they had been bitten.

Diagnosing your children is a big mistake! But she made it, and this movie shows the consequences. At one moment, when she admits they need help, she ponders for a moment whether she herself needs help. But is triumphant at the end.... "I treated my children".

Maybe watch it again? It's not as bad as you think.

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i agree - i guess thats the pitfalls of this genre - you cant really justify 90% of the footage realistically ..

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