

Canada • 1987
The fractured family of Atom Egoyan’s darkly comic second feature consists of Stan (David Hemblen), a mild sexual sadist; Sandra (Gabrielle Rose), his live-in mistress and video bondage partner; and his seventeen-year old son, Van (Aidan Tierney). Van’s deep resentment of his father becomes the catalyst of a plot to free his beloved grandmother from an old-age home and establish a new, blissfully “happy” family. Egoyan weaves an ironic tale of characters who seem most alive when they’re captured on videotape.
The fractured family of Atom Egoyan’s darkly comic second feature consists of Stan (David Hemblen), a mild sexual sadist; Sandra (Gabrielle Rose), his live-in mistress and video bondage partner; and his seventeen-year old son, Van (Aidan Tierney). Van’s deep resentment of his father becomes the catalyst of a plot to free his beloved grandmother from an old-age home and establish a new, blissfully “happy” family. Egoyan weaves an ironic tale of characters who seem most alive when they’re captured on videotape.