Sitcom

A bourgeoisie French family begins to unravel one night when son Nicholas announces at dinner that he is a "homo." Then sister Sophie sleepwalks out her window and becomes a wheelchair-bound dominatrix. And mother, to put it mildly, transgresses sexual norms by seducing her son. I smell a rat. And it is, in fact, a rodent that dear old dad has brought home that, with each bite of a different member of the household, unleashes repressed desires and homicidal tendencies. While it's all provocatively perverse and played with an absolutely straight face, Sitcom becomes tiresome as the audience anticipates the next taboo-breaking outrage. Nor is this fresh terrain: Blue Velvet's descent into the dirt beneath white picket fence America was way more unsettling, and SCTV's take on Leave it to Beaver (with an alcoholic Ward and Eddie Haskell-murdering "Beave") hit closer to home. In press reports, director Francois Ozon has said that "there is no equivalent for John Waters in France." There is now. Consider yourselves warned. Optional. (K. Lee Benson)