You Can't Stay 'Cause You Been Somewhere Else: Family Relationships in Films

Not sure what prompted this, but I started thinking about which movies do the best job of portraying the various permutations of family relationships. There are seven in the basic family unit: father-daughter, father-son, mother-daughter, mother-son, brother-brother, sister-sister, brother-sister. The relationship doesn't have to be the focus of the film, it can be a smaller part of something related or something entirely different.

The one I thought of first was You Can Count on Me for brother-sister. I'd say it's definitive.

For brother-brother, On the Waterfront and Raging Bull, The Fabulous Baker Boys too. I guess you could say Dead Ringers, although a pretty extreme and perverse case.

For father-sons--not the film's focus--Wesley Snipes/Sam Jackson/Ossie Davis and John Turturro/Anthony Quinn in Jungle Fever. The scene where Turturro finally pushes back at Quinn, I find that very powerful.

Obviously, there are countless great father-son and mother-son films. One of the reasons You Can Count on Me sticks out is the comparative scarcity of brother-sister films.

For sister-sister, Hannah and Her Sisters has some great scenes between Farrow, Wiest, and Hershey.

Only English-language?

Otherwise the films of Ozu, Desplechin, The Makioka Sisters, Kore-eda, among others, come to mind.

Yeah, "Tokyo Story" for sure.

I dunno, "Little Women"?

Looking at my last ILX favorite-ever list, 20th Century Women (mother-son) and The Squid and the Whale (mother-son, father-son) for sure. I really didn't have many of them.

Assayas' Summer Hours, one of my favorite films, gets the sibling dynamic right. Last night I watched Christoph Honoré's Winter Boy, almost as adept at same.

For me, nothing beats the intimate familial relations of the Star Wars nonalogy. Who can forget the moment Darth tells his freshly left-handed son, "Hey! It's me, your daddy!" Or when Leia supplants a wet one on the face of her stepbro, wow. Or that time when "Uncle" Owen drinks the blue milk. Just epic scenes from the silver screen that nobody will forget!

I mention it always cos I really love Magnolia, but.

Frank TJ Mackey and the way he reverts to being a traumatised child at his dying father’s bedside, both of them monsters.

Stanley and his fuckawful stage father and the way everyone in his life treats him as a resource to be tapped and not a child with needs because that’s how his father treats him.

There are more but these are my immediate. Some fairly cruel interactions in those two.

For father-sons and brother-brother, I've always found The Texas Chain Saw Massacre especially moving.

Bergman has what many undoubtedly consider at least two definitive films on this subject in Cries and Whispers (sisters) and Autumn Sonata (mother-daughter), though I gotta admit that I don’t count either of them among my favorites (my fave Bergman, Fanny and Alexander, would appear to foreground the brother-sister relationship, but it has surprisingly little weight in the film).

Mildred Pierce (Curtiz; haven’t seen the recent-ish TV one) is a good mother-daughter film. The recent I Love You Dad features just about the most pathological father-son relationship you can imagine, but I dug it (the movie, not the relationship). For a nicer but still quite fraught example of the father-son dynamic, I endorse Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in all seriousness.

Mother-son? If I wanted to be a real sicko, I could say Murmur of the Heart. Psycho, too, but that is both too obvious and a bit of a cheat. Maybe The Power of the Dog, but even there the mother-son relationship exists more to give the film its narrative structure, rather than actually portraying the relationship.

Surprised that I can’t think of much in the way of brother-sister, though I suspect you’re correct about You Can Count on Me being definitive.

I thought of both Cries and Whispers and Fanny & Alexander too, it's just been awhile, and I wasn't sure which relationships were emphasized in which. Magnolia's a good one. (I don't want to get off-topic, but as a surrogate family, there's lots in Boogie Nights, too, especially with regards to Julianne Moore.)

Yes, Mildred Pierce, original and (especially) remake.

Nope is a really nice brother-sister relationship. They tease each other and the film explores a bit about how they’ve both reacted to loss, and the expectations on them. They felt very real to me.

East of Eden might be a good brother-brother example; again, it's been a while, might be more of a father-son film.

Lots of Wes Anderson, Tenenbaums most obviously. (Father-children, assorted sibling relationships.)

Georgia is a good sister-sister film.

C'mon C'mon the definitive uncle-nephew film

This episode of Siskel & Ebert from 1980 might be of interest here: https://siskelebert.org/?p=7841

(The Great Santini might be another key father-son one; I haven’t seen it in decades)

Looking through the TSPDT? list, The Magnificent Ambersons, I think under mother-son. Pather Panchali's one of my favourite films, but it would seem to belong (like the Ebert-Siskel link) to a more generalized "films about families" category. Chinatown (mother-daughter...sister-sister...mother-daughter...I know, poor taste). Paris, Texas for brother-brother.

Boyz n the Hood, great father-son film.

Late Spring and Leave No Trace are the first two father-daughter films I thought of, the former especially affecting to me.

No one wants me to bring The Color Wheel into this thread, yet it’s the first thing that came to mind for brother-sister movies.

I had to look that up, realize I started to watch it on MUBI months ago and didn't finish. I think I was on the fence and just got sidetracked.

Of recent vintage, Aftersun is a good father-daughter film.

oh yeah, Aftersun was terrific

For mother/daughter: The Florida Project.

Grandson to Grandfather: A Life by Canadian director Frank Cole.

Affliction and Rocco and His Brothers come to mind as harsh depictions of brotherly (and parental) relationships.

Another good brother-sister one (coincidentally also with Laura Linney): The Savages.

well first thing that came to mind when I saw the thread title was You Can Count on Me, so gotta agree it's iconic in this category.

He Got Game for father son

Crumb for brother brother

Lady Bird for mother daughter

Rachel Getting Married should be a good sister-sister one but I don't recall if Rosemarie Dewitt's half of the relationship is all that well developed as a character outside of someone for Anne Hathaway to react to

Was thinking about the Dardennes but the really powerful relationships that come to mind are more unconventional

I have always enjoyed the Paul Rudd as holy-fool vehicle Our Idiot Brother

How about Grave of the Fireflies for brother-sister?

Ctrl-f "p0rnhuß"

All About My Mother ranks among the warmest of queer family films. My Own Private Idaho too.

Unrelated to my last post: Killer of Sheep too.

The Cathedral the definitive movie for looking at an old photo of your aunts and wondering what they were talking about

I never saw it, but was The Skeleton Twins good for brother-sister?

well first thing that came to mind when I saw the thread title was You Can Count on Me, so gotta agree it's iconic in this category.

Yep!

I remember liking Ordinary People but haven't seen it in decades

Grey Gardens for mother-daughter

hell yes to Ordinary People and The Cathedral. Also: the excellent Armageddon Time.

Don't know why I didn't include this in my initial post: The Godfather (father-son) and The Godfather Part II (brother-brother, maybe brother-sister).

Holiday is really good for sibling relationships and the parallel-but-different effects of a toxic upbringing.

^^ great pick. Lew Ayres -- one of my favorite portraits of dissolution.

Obviously, there are countless great father-son and mother-son films. One of the reasons You Can Count on Me sticks out is the comparative scarcity of brother-sister films.

― clemenza

you could make a great fucking film about the relationship between a trans woman and her brother (or brothers). me and my brothers. there's a whole novel there (one i'm definitely never going to write, though, too personally painful).

La Cienega is an amazing portrait of a (sweaty) dysfunctional family. Joanna Hogg's Archipelago. Less sweaty but just as dysfunctional.

Perverse brother-sister film: Sweet Smell of Success.

At Close Range, in the category of extremely fucked-up

Watched that for the first time a few months ago; that's a good one.

I didn't care much for Albert Brooks's Mother when it came out--inflated expectations, possibly--but that might be an obvious inclusion.

Tetro, brother-brother

prob recency bias but the best brother-brother narratives that immed come to mind are both shows:

-Beef
-I Know This Much is True

I've definitely seen some of the permutations done really well in TV shows: Six Feet Under might have aced all seven (Nate Sr. didn't have a lot of interaction with his kids, being dead and all, but what there was was excellent; for sister-sister, you had Ruth and Sarah).

Dreamin' Wild (the Donnie and Joe Emerson film) somewhat disjointed and morose for the first hour, but I still liked it up till their big reunion showcase in Seattle--lost its way after that, I thought. I'll post about here instead of on their thread; it's probably best appreciated as a pretty good brother film.

Aftersun - the sense of dread / imminent threat affected my wife more than me. Under Pressure though, omg. An incredible and unexpected transformation of something so familiar, beloved, and uplifting (despite the lyrics) into something unfamiliar and disturbing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGy2xrY-x7I

I should accept the mystery but I'm going to watch the Aftersun Explained video...

I thought I might have mentioned The Virgin Suicides itt before but apparently not? Which is strange as I’ve watched it with my own sisters several times.

Obviously it’s filmed from mainly an external POV to the sisters but you do get some internal dialogue in the form of Cecilia’s diary entries. There’s a bit in one of her voiceovers where she says “My sister, the mean one, pulling my hair,” and we would always talk about our theories about which sister that was (majority opinion was Mary). Film depicts the twisting and perversion of normal sister relationships - the sisters teasing and having impenetrable injokes with each other was very familiar to me, being locked in the house by my parents less so.

Cecilia’s observations about her sisters that come through the veil of familiarity and exasperation where you know someone well enough to know them almost as well as you know yourself - otm.

I'd say that American Fiction makes its handful of brother-sister and brother-brother scenes really count.