Simone is a fat (or to put it politically correct – obese) 15-year-old girl who decided to spend the Easter holidays in the countryside. And in the company of Aunt Claudia (Pia Hierzegger), a well-known nutritionist who recently divorced Simona’s uncle, and since then practically the entire family has lost contact with her. Claudia’s books on healthy eating are bestsellers and it’s no wonder that Simone wants her aunt’s help, but from the very beginning of this slow-burning Austrian horror, something strange will begin to happen. It works in the moments when we get to know Claudia’s family, her strange and frightened son Filippo and her sleazy new boyfriend Stefano as well as some grotesque black comedy.
It seems that the arrival of Simone interrupted them in some other plans, but feature film debutant Peter Hengl almost managed to completely destroy a potentially interesting story with an irritatingly slow pace. From the beginning, it is clear to us that there is nothing in that house as it is trying to portray to Simona, as well as that everyone is hiding some dark secrets. What actually happens there will turn out to be even more horrible than what Simone could have imagined, and the entire film plays on the feeling of discomfort, building a disturbing, even ominous atmosphere. As Easter approaches, the alarm bells will ring louder and louder, and it will become increasingly clear to Simoni, from whose perspective the story is told, that it would have been much smarter for her to have stayed at home, enjoying ham and eggs, and not as there forced fasting, we will understand to the end and for what reasons.
“Family Dinner” premiered in the midnight section of the Sundance festival, and it’s a real shame that the pace is really soporific that the film becomes almost irritating over time. Day by day (Hengl divided the film into chapters and by day, from Monday to Easter Sunday) the atmosphere here becomes more and more ominous, the discomfort grows, and Simone slowly realizes that she is dealing with anything but normal people and that her uncle did not leave Aunt Claudia without a reason. The feeling of uneasiness and anxiety is enhanced by its gloomy color palette, as well as the bizarre relationships between the family members, and it’s actually a real shame that Hengl decided for such a snail’s pace, with which when we see the finale itself, we almost don’t care how it ends. .