Cinema Verite

This made-for-HBO feature from directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini dramatizes the real-life story behind the 1973 PBS documentary series An American Family, the original reality TV series that took cameras into the home of the suburban Loud family for many months. Diane Lane and Tim Robbins play Pat and Bill Loud, a couple pitched somewhere between old-fashioned suburban cliché and affluent ‘70s hipsters, with James Gandolfini co-starring as producer Craig Gilbert, who plays on Bill's ego and Pat's socially-conscious volunteerism to agree to let the cameras into their private lives. While Cinema Verite never quite captures the revolutionary aspect of the production—a controversial endeavor that shattered stereotypes of middle class idealism with intimate, raw, revealing portraits of the stresses and contradictions of American life—the film remains consistently engaging. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)