I don't know what to think of this movie. It was one of the best movies I have ever seen, but also one of the most gross.Many scenes are just gross (eg: when the neglected house cat eats the puke of father, when father is pissing in his pants while he is sitting on a chair during a beer drinking game, when some of the brothers shoot a pigeon when it shits on the bedsheets, ...) But it is also a sympathizing movie. Almost everything is filmed in the eyes of a 13 year boy who lives together with his beer drinking asocial, ill-mannered family. It are actually his father, some uncles and his grandmother. The grandmother is very tiny, has nothing to say and is not in position to change house rules nor the way of life. The boy is raised by those men and unaware of his marginal life. He just follows his uncles in their tracks (and begins to drink, smoke, ... and joins all those nasty events with his uncles).The beauty of the movie is: you just get pity with the boy.

Four or five uncles living together have only one real interest in life --- drinking beer, beer and more beer. Not the best environment for a young teenage boy, particularly since the family name bonds them all together, while also serving like a spiderweb to keep anyone from breaking away to better themselves.There are virtually no meaningful interactions between men and women. RElationships impose on time critically needed for drinking beer. There are a few s....ing scenes, nothing like "having sex" or "making love" --- just short fast paced humping, of the let's-get-it-over-with variety. The men never rise to the level of sexual acts with women they necessarily like, so when the women get pregnant the men get annoyed.One need not travel to Belgium to encounter this kind of dysfunctional living, as most of us found it in our own lives. The lucky ones, with ambition and tenacity, break away (as does the boy in this film) with the damned ones trying to drag us back, if we let them.An interesting film, no doubt; but overpraised by other reviewers. Plan on a bath or shower when you get home. 6 of 10.

I saw this last month at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival where the film's director Felix van Groeningen attended my screening to take an audience Q&A following the film. Adapted from the Dimitri Verhulst novel by van Groeningen and Christopher Dirickx this is the story of young Gunter Strobe (Kenneth Vanbaeden) being brought up by his single and alcoholic father Marcel (Koen de Graeve) after his mother walked out on them. They live at grandma Strobe's (Gilda de Bal) house along with Gunter's hard partying uncles Petrol (Wouter Hendrickx), Beefcake (Johan Heldenbergh) and Koen (Bert Haelvort). the white trash family is so out of control that it's amazing that social services haven't taken Gunter out of this environment a long time ago, although they have threatened to. It's grandma Strobe with the only sensibility and sense of stability and guidance that keeps Gunter in the home but she has reached the point of exasperation in her the behavior of her sons. Valentijn Dhaenens plays the older Gunter looking back at his his childhood years and giving gratitude to his grandmother. this is an excellent cast. I only wish the grandmother's character was more developed and their was more of an on screen presence of her and also a little more of Gunter's mother and her marriage years to Marcel. The character of uncle Koen is underdeveloped as well. Many might find this film about a distasteful family distasteful as well but there is a lot to like in this relatively slow film and lots of dark comedy and genuine tragedy. This was Belgium's official submission to the 82nd Academy Awards for Best foreign Language film. It's van Groeningen's third film and the third time is a charm and I like this film. I'll look forward to more from the young director and more with a bigger budget hopefully. I loved the Roy Orbison scene. I would recommend this and give it an 8.5 out of 10.

I saw this movie yesterday. I was drawn to it because it won the golden Amphora at the "Festival de Quend du film grolandais", an independent movie festival. Seeing the film poster with naked hairy guys cycling, I knew that I would have some fun but how far will they go? In fact, the movie alternates quite hilarious scenes with drunk people with more dramatic sequences. With this consideration, the movie is finally closer to English dramedies that are used to show working class characters and, finally, whatever strange they are, you feel some sympathy for those guys. It's quite comforting to see people who don't care about the others (or perhaps even about anything) but you also see that there are consequences. For sure, this movie is not about preventing the audience from drinking or about giving any lesson. Following the story of Gunther, you just follow the day to day life of a hillbilly family with its ups and downs (a little more ups in the movie). Like they say in "Les cahiers du cinema", Felix van Groeningen makes you love and care for these model people in the same manner as John Cassavetes was able to do. In a nutshell, go and see it (except if you are a feminist of course).