Rolling Family
Rolling Family
| 06 September 2004 (USA)
Rolling Family Trailers

A wedding invite from an estranged sibiling inspires a grandmother to assemble her family and embark on a roadtrip in a broken down caravan.

Reviews
Cleveronix A different way of telling a story
Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
Melanie Bouvet The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.
Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.
robert-642 It had the potential to be a good film but was let down on a few technical aspects.1. He shouldn't have used too many hand held shots.2. Should have used film stock rather than electronic. Poor colour separation.3. Far, far too many close up shots. If you are going to make a 'road film' then its a good idea to see the characters within a location. There were just not enough. Okay, one could argue that he tried to convey a feeling of claustrophobia but we don't need the entire film to tell us it's claustrophobic inside a camper. Surely if it was mad hot they would all want to be outside on every opportunity? 4. The kissing young couple. Sorry but very basic and primitive. It would have been better for them to be seen sneaking off into the woods then we could use our own imagination.5. The dialogue with non members of the family with other people were few are far between. The only worthwhile example I can recall was the police roadblock and the man with a spare gasket.There are too many 'road movies' and to stand out from the rest you really do need to be original - this wasn't.And lastly, I thought it could have been improved with a large injection of humour or real pathos.
Jeremy Liebster I honestly wanted to like this film. I love Argentina and I like quirky films where not all that much happens. But I am sorry to have to report that this is one of the worst, most excruciatingly dull films I have ever seen. There is absolutely no plot and absolutely no character development. What happens (to use the term loosely) is that a Buenos Aires Grandma decides that her whole family will drive up to Misiones for a wedding and the film shows us what happens on the trip. Which is nothing. Except lots of incidences where the van breaks down which means there are lots of shots of engines and carboretters. We find out very little indeed about any of the family who go on this trip except that one of the men is having an affair with one of the women. Sometimes with road trip films at least you get some lovely shots of the countryside, yet even here the film fails, making the pampas look about as dull as the subject matter.I actually found it remarkable that this film is presumably a work of fiction. The fact that somebody would bother to make up a story where absolutely nothing of interest occurs and where there is no character development or humour is actually remarkable. And the fact that a film company thought that it would be a good idea to buy the story is equally astounding.I occasionally have a problem on my machine with DVDs skipping. And whenever this normally happens I go hopping mad. I have to tell you however that when my copy of La Familia Rodante started jumping I was actually relieved that it meant I would have to endure less of the awful banality that was proceeding in front of me. Honestly, the only people who would like this film are mechanics and even they would get bored after the first breakdown.
greymumster There are certainly some wonderful interesting roads in this movie and they certainly do engender the desire to get in a car and drive from Buenos Aires to Misiones; but really at core, this film is about interpersonal family dynamics. This movie is so beautifully observed and dare I say it, made with 'a love of family' perspective probably impossible in the UK. I found it utterly spellbinding. Call me an old soppy but just the opening shot of the great grandma sitting on her bed looking through her box of family photos had me sobbing tenderly. OK there was drama and incident along the route, but the way the family accepted each others foibles and gave each other space, seemed totally magical to me. I know they probably did know each other well in non-film reality, but the way it has been captured on screen is almost visceral. Hey man it was like you were there! I hope Mr Trapero goes on to make more Cool-Greatgrandma pictures and never hands over the casting of his films to an agency.
georgebermouth A dozen members of a Buenos Aires suburbs family starts a single weekend trip of 1000 km to take grandma to a wedding, in a motor home. Every character in the movie plays a great part (this is Trapero's best film), relationships are shown with quite a simple eye, but with a lot of sensitivity. Some kind of argentinity is shown, the movie takes the spectator along the way with this family members who will show incredible capability to survive and pass on obstacles, and also amazing human vices, good and bad, but particularly and specially human. The way Trapero engages in dialog with the audience is extremely mature, the director finds the way to balance between not underestimating the audience shooting unnecessary and not pretending to find deep sociological or anthropological plots, just showing how everyone works.