L'épine dans le coeur

Gondry's movies are usually strong because they're visually original, creative and have a unique DIY innovative edge, while reflecting genuine humanistic tendencies.

The life of the director's aunt is used here in that vein - except there's willingly little to enjoy visually: Gondry attempts to shoot a documentary and aims at a certain 'realism'. Except here, maybe because he's familiar with the cast, which would allow him to ask intimate questions to relatives in the private sphere, 'realism' becomes 'voyeurism'. Questions asked to the poor cast are just plain bad taste. And the humanistic tendencies Gondry so beautifully explored in all his previous movies are travestied in facebook-era voyeurism.

A poor, disappointing 'effort' which can evoke, quite oddly, the most sadistic of Andre Gide. Except Gide is fully aware of what he's doing - which Gondry doesn't even notice.