The Price of Family (Natale a Tutti i Costi) is a Christmas comedy film directed by Giovanni Bognetti and is a remake of the French film Mes tres chers enfants. The film stars Christian De Sica, Angela Finocchiaro, Dharma Mangia Woods and Claudio Colica, alongside other cast members, and has a runtime of 90 minutes.
Netflix’s description of the movie reads:
Christian De Sica, Angela Finocchiaro, Dharma Mangia Woods and Claudio Colica star in this story about parents who trick their adult kids into visiting.
– The Price of Family Review Does Not Contain Spoilers –
The Price of Family comes to Netflix maybe a month too late for the Christmas fun and cheer. It’s probably for the best because watching parents who simply refuse to move on with their lives after their adult children have grown up and moved out of their house is a chore and not fun for the festive season.
The first problem of the movie is that the things that it showcases feel very old and stuck in time. It’s not fun watching parents dupe their adult children, trying to keep them as close to home as possible. On the other hand, the children, too, are totally peaches with no regard for their parents. But to be honest, Carlo and Anna are the definitions of controlling parents, and the way the story goes probably proves all too well why the children want to run away.
The scenes surrounding the family are always awkward and uncomfortable to watch, and you can feel that the creators really wanted these moments to be humorous, but alas, the feels fall flat right from the moment the movie starts. You wait there, wondering when you will finally laugh, but the moment never really rolls around. You sit in uncomfortable silence, wondering when this will fall apart and finally end. Weirdly, even at 90 minutes, the movie feels a bit too long.
It’s not the lie that really gets me, to be honest; it’s the way the parents dig their heels into the lie and manipulate their children, putting their careers and lives on the line to fulfil their fantasies of a fun time. It’s interesting how Anna is unable to accept the riddance of the umbilical cord but expects her daughter Alessandra to make her a grandmother. No such expectations from the son, though, of course.
The Price of Family is littered with such cliched and sad writing that doesn’t make you laugh and gives you the ick with its 18th-century thought process. The manipulation is gross, and the fact that it tries to tickle us with these silly and, frankly, mean situations makes you annoyed and fills the air rather negatively.
The last stab on the back is when the entire ordeal is fixed too quickly. There is no moment of growth or redemption – but forgiveness is the norm around the end of the year because when it’s Christmas, you have to forgive the worst of things, even without apologies. That’s just the law.
Summing Up: The Price of Family
The Price of Family doesn’t even try to be anything more than a sad retelling of unpleasant family affairs to hopefully get some laughs along the way. The air is damp and claustrophobic, with the weight of manipulation hanging all around and leaving you feeling extremely annoyed instead of feeling happy.
The Price of Family is streaming on Netflix.
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This movie actually focuses on a common current problem. Many parents, not all, presently face dealing with their very insensitive 20 and 30 somethings, so It was funny to watch the parents push back for once in this fictional story. I’m sure many 50, 60 and 70 somethings, guiltily, really enjoyed this movie.