THE MISFORTUNATES
Directed by Felix van Groeningen
Produced by Dirk Impens
Written by Christophe Dirickx & van Groeningen, based on the novel De Helaasheid der Dingen (The Misfortunates) by Dimitri Verhulst
Released by NeoClassics Films Ltd.
Flemish with English subtitles
Belgium/The Netherlands. 108 min. Not Rated
With Kenneth Vanbaeden, Valentijn Dhaenens, Koen De Graeve, Wouter Hendrickx, Johan Heldenbergh, Bert Haelvoet & Gilda De Bal
 

The Misfortunates makes good art out of a raucous freak show. This absurd gem, lovingly directed by Felix van Groeningen, is a story of the Strobbe family, a crass bunch of endearing degenerates pissing away the late ’80s in a backwater Belgian village. Four overgrown, beer-sodden brothers live with their mother and 13-year-old Gunther (Kenneth Vanbaeden), the product of one of the brother’s misguided procreations.

Gunther looks on with curiosity as the Strobbe boys spend their days testing the limits of social failure. When not at the bar, they dream up perversely creative ways to booze themselves to the brink of medical limits, be it a drinking tour de France (each drink equals a mile) or endless beer drinking contests. Even when alcohol isn’t the main objective of the game, be it a naked cycling race or a drag-themed village carnival, the childish hooligans still end up inhumanly wasted.

The viewer spends the first part of the film in giddy fascination watching this foreign species denigrate themselves through their hilarious hijinks. When their television is repossessed, the brothers politely (by their standards) invite themselves to the home of a sweet Iranian couple to watch their musical idol, Roy Orbison, in concert. It is an inexplicable delight seeing these large, dim-witted men swooning to “Pretty Woman” like love struck teenage girls.  

But we can’t bate our judgment for long. Gunther’s misfortune of being born into this family quickly moves from comical to criminal, after his father, Marcel (Koen De Graeve, the most accomplished alcoholic of the four), physically attacks him upon hearing that he wants to board at school. The colorful recollections of Gunther’s childhood, told in flashbacks by an older Gunther (Valentijn Dhaenens)—now a struggling novelist in a doomed relationship of his own—are sometimes poignant but never emotionally taxing. The director balances humor and sincerity like a poised juggler, with only a few heavily woeful moments slipped in toward the end. The adult Gunther compares the hatred toward the mother who abandoned him at birth with his hatred toward the woman carrying his child, and the hint of morbidity in this thought makes it all the more profound.

Even when they disgust and disappoint, an irrational empathy toward these charming lunatics somehow hangs in the air. We spend the film laughing, smiling, and shaking our heads in disbelief, and walk out of the theater with the feeling that we’ve just seen something truly original. Yana Litovsky
April 10, 2010