Meet the Guilbys

There are refurbished families, and then there are dysfunctional families. In this enjoyable French comedy, the Guilbys are both. Claire (Isabelle Carré) and Maurice (Stéphane De Groodt), once married to others, are now hitched to one another in Paris. Claire's kids are the teenage Alexandre (Solal Forte) and young Prune (Aminthe Audiard), while Maurice has an adolescent girl named Lucie (Joséphine Japy). Twin crises hit the Guilbys when college professor Maurice is told that he is being transferred to another school in a small town, and Claire receives word that her father has died. Maurice sits on his news, even though it causes him visible anxiety, but in any case Claire's loss requires everyone to pile into the family van and head toward her dad's funeral in a distant village. As road-trip movies go, this one is typical but nonetheless entertaining: Prune shoplifts a stuffed cow toy from a convenience store (the cow has symbolic meaning for her); Alexandre sexually pines for Lucie, who carries a chip on her shoulder about her parents' divorce; Maurice is too distracted to make love to the bereaved Claire; and the latter's brother, Marc (Alex Lutz), wears a perpetual dark cloud and is unforgiving of his late father's mistakes. All this bumpiness is played for laughs but has a sorrowful side as well. Filmmakers Arthur Delaire and Quentin Reynaud handle the grace moments and the near-slapstick sequences with equal expertise. Recommended. (T. Keogh)