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FAMILY LAW
Written & Directed by: Daniel Burman.
Produced by: Diego Dubcovsky & Jose Maria Morales.
Director of Photography: Ramiro Civita.
Edited by: Alejandro Parysow.
Music by: Cesar Lerner.
Released by: IFC First Take.
Language: Spanish with English Subtitles.
Country of Origin: Argentina/Spain/Italy/France. 102 Min. Not Rated.
With: Daniel Hendler, Arturo Goetz, Julieta Díaz, & Eloy Burman.

In this sweet but meandering and sentimental portrait, Family Law’s young dad learns about fatherhood from both his two-year-old son and his father, the second in writer/director Daniel Burman’s planned trilogy about Jewish father/son relationships in Buenos Aires (the first was the poignant Lost Embrace, also starring Daniel Hendler).

Perelman Junior (Hendler, portraying only a somewhat more confident character since his debut in Burman’s 2000 film Waiting for the Messiah) narrates the daily schedule of both himself and his attorney father, kindly Perelman Senior (a very personable Arturo Goetz), who helps the little guys with their pesky legal problems while Junior teaches law at the university. (Burman’s father, too, was a lawyer, and the director studied law before becoming a filmmaker.) Knowing more about legal theory than legal practicalities, he seeks dad’s help in order to impress a pretty former student, Sandra (Julieta Díaz), now a Pilates instructor, with winning her law suit and her hand in marriage. In class, Junior teaches the rules of evidence, but his amusing challenge to his students about the weakness of eyewitness accounts doesn’t help him see what is right in front of his eyes about his own father and son.

The many comic visual vignettes, reinforced by the droll score, are more arresting than their sum total, especially when they subtly contradict Junior’s pronouncements in the narration. Senior’s work is symbolized by his feet hustling up and down the imposing entrance stairs and hallways of a court house, then him eating with his “legendary clients” in cafés, succeeding with charm and more than a little chicanery to “make the clients feel good.” On the other hand, Junior’s work is epitomized by his office building literally collapsing from the weight of too much paper work, and there are many amusing scenes of piles of legal papers being rescued down a spiral staircase. He only forsakes his formal suits briefly during his courtship of Sandra, but not even when sleeping.

Burman is often compared to Woody Allen, and the story here implies that real-life reference ironically when Junior, like dads in many other films like Kramer vs. Kramer and as Allen readily admitted in actual court testimony, knows nothing about his adorable preschooler Gaston (Eloy Burman, the director’s son) – not his toilet training progress; not his Swiss nursery school, where Junior discovers the uniform has a cross on it; not his son’s activity schedule; nor the touchy feely involvement the school demands of its parents, all of which make Junior very uncomfortable. When the building collapse leaves him at loose ends with a sudden vacation, he suddenly takes more interest in his child with cute marital negotiations and jabs at the meaning of quality time. But there are no dramatic conflicts, just some quiet discoveries and regrets, as life goes on (and on) and Junior matures into fatherhood and comes to terms with his father’s legacy, which all comes together in the delightful closing credits’ school pageant.

In addition to its limited theatrical release, Family Law will be immediately available through the Cablevision and Comcast on-demand cable service, IFC in Theaters. Nora Lee Mandel
December 8, 2006