Family values

Cinema without borders

- NAMRATA JOSHI

HERE is no denying that an Adolescence wave appears to have taken over the world of entertainment across the globe. As Philip Barantini's mini-series brings issues of toxic mano-sphere and online radicalisation to the fore, it is worthwhile to catch South Korean filmmaker Hur Jin-ho's A Normal Family as an apt companion piece to the British crime drama.

Adapted from Herman Koch's Dutch novel Het Diner (The Dinner), A Normal Family had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023, came home to local viewers in October last year and is set to release in North America in April. Like Adolescence, it also casts a glance at the darkness that resides deep within teenaged souls but places all that's grim and gloomy in the larger, complex realm of family ties that divide more often than bind. Incidentally, the novel was also adapted in 2017 into an American film of the same name starring Richard Gere, Steve Coogan, Laura Linney and Rebecca Hall.