Movie review and producer audio interview: Familiar Strangers

by John P. Meyer

Familiar Strangers is one of those small films that simply wouldn't get made if there weren't people out there (and you can take "out there" a couple different ways) willing to devote a lot of personal blood, sweat and tears to a project that is likely never to be seen in more than a dozen major markets around the country. (If that many.)

One such person with a passion for telling small, intimate, non-blockbuster stories via the silver screen is Barry Sisson, who produced this movie. Barry sat down for a discussion in the lobby of Dallas' Angelika Theater a couple of weeks ago, on the day before a special invitation preview screening of the film was to be shown there. Frank Swietek and I had just seen the movie before our conversation; we thus were able to question Barry with some degree of intelligence on the subject of his film.

And, as you'll learn from the audio, it is in a very real sense his film, because he got involved in every aspect of the production.

Tomorrow night (Friday, March 6, following the 7:40 p.m. show), you'll be able to pick up right where Frank and I left off. Barry will be at the Angelika in person to field whatever questions you care to throw his way. An apparent glutton for punishment, he will also be in attendance at the 7:40 p.m. Saturday show, and at the 3 p.m. matinees on both Saturday and Sunday.

Familiar Strangers tells the story of a moderately dysfunctional family getting together for Thanksgiving at Mom and Dad's house in semi-rural Virginia. Prodigal son Brian (Shawn Hatosy ) is making his first return appearance since achieving geeky fame via the publication of a popular science opus called Adventures in the Electromagnetic Spectrum: not the sort of book you'd take to the beach on holiday, unless you're the kind of person who sports a glob of tin oxide on your nose and has grown accustomed to having sand kicked in your face - by skinny teenaged girls, for instance.

The Worthington family have, it seems, two holiday traditions that must be adhered to: 1) arguing to the point of emotional breakdown, and 2) competing as a team in the annual donkey basketball competition. Amazingly, vigorous exercise of the first item fails to cancel out participation in the second one.

So while Brian's dad Frank (a crotchety Tom Bower) harbors serious disappointment over the fact that Brian let him down by not taking over the family hardware business, he will still pass the basketball off to Brian so he can score two points from the back of a mild-mannered ass. And while brother Kenny (DJ Qualls, who plays hangdog-with-rapier-wit like he was born to it) makes sister Erin (Cameron Richardson) practically apoplectic with his wisecracking over her failed marriage, she will still cheer him on as he lines up for a shot at the winning basket.

My reading of the promotional materials for the film (beginning with the poster) led me to expect that this would be a slyly-humorous, light-hearted kind of dysfunctional family tale, but it starts out as more of a played-straight drama, which is a bit off-putting. Gradually, however, the promised humor element does enter into play, just as the seemingly too-severe character of Frank eventually exposes a compassionate side. To everyone's considerable surprise.

Chief among the humor elements is a backstory involving family hound Argus. This over-the-hill shaggy setter is on his last legs - as demonstrated by the fact that a human must accompany him outside to hold up his hind quarters whenever he needs to do his business. Both Kenny and Erin are convinced that Brian is just the guy to deliver some sort of surreptitious coup de grace to poor Argus, so that Mom and Dad can get on with their on-hold lives.

Speaking of Mom, Ann Dowd plays Dottie as the sort of over-sheltering matriarch who would rather her (adult) children weren't disturbed by a death in the family. So she simply neglects to tell them about it when an aunt passes away. Also notable is Maddy (Georgia Mae Lively as a wise and engaging youngster), Erin's daughter, who is forced to wear a bicycle helmet while strapped into the back seat of her mother's Volvo. (C'mon, Mom, it's a safety car, for cryin' out loud!)

Rounding out the major players is a young woman named Allison (lovely Nikki Reed), who graduated high school with Brian and who seems to think that his book is more of a science fiction tale. (Since she hasn't actually read it.)

A few unexpected turns of events lead to something beyond a by-the-numbers, everything's-coming-up-roses outcome, but still - you can go ahead and expect a generally happy ending to these proceedings, which start out more than a few degrees removed from idyllic. Not unlike real life.