Netflix released The Guide to the Perfect Family, a comedy movie that talks about overparenting. The film is based in Quebec and is in the French language. The movie raised the question of how difficult it is to raise children through humour and drama. Being a parent is hard. From sleepless nights to being unsure about how to handle different situations, there are many complexities.
Often children feel suffocated by their parents who try to give the best of everything to them. As a child, we think that our parents don’t understand us while at the same time we can’t understand what it is to be a parent until we become one. The Guide to the Perfect Family follows the lives of a set of parents who live in Quebec. It shares the struggle they face while raising their kids in a world that promotes only success and where everyone is obsessed with social media.
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Even though the story is fictional, the situation is not. We are living in such a world where teaching about failure to children is often neglected. As we are all surrounded by social media, being successful has a different meaning. What we see is not real and what is real is what we can’t see on social media.
Parents Vs Children
The film starts with an opening scene of parents attending a parent-teacher meeting. The teacher is bombarded with questions from parents who continue asking relentlessly. This depicts how parents always go the extra mile for their kids but ignore how sometimes that can suffocate their kids. It is refreshing to see Netflix releasing Quebec film slate films. The Guide to the Perfect Family is directed by Richard Trogi, a Canadian filmmaker. It has an an ensemble cast, starring Louis Morissette, Catherine Chabot, Emilie Bierre, Xavier Lebel and Isabelle Guérard.
As the story of The Guide to the Perfect Family continues, it shows an extremely common family. Two parents, two children, a big house, good jobs, and the kids excelling in studies. But as the story unfolds, their dysfunctionality becomes transparent. The Guide to the Perfect Family shows the difficulties the parents face with their kids and between themselves. When the kids are young, the parents don’t get their space and private time, and when kids grow up, they don’t HAVE time for their parents. The timetable for the parents is set for the entire week, each week. From math tuitions to graduation, the parents have to devote all their time.
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“The Picture-Perfect Family”
The picture-perfect family faces more difficulties when their elder child Rose, is caught up in a mess. To keep up with her good grades, she has been buying tests from previous years. Rose and her father, who felt the proudest of her good grade, go the school. Other things such as THC candy and sleeping pills are also found in her locker. The disappointment on her father’s face is evident.
This is something as a child, we are all afraid of, disappointing our parents. What makes it worse is that a lot of us are not able to communicate and share our feelings properly. Not being able to understand and all the miscommunication with her father makes Rose become a ‘rebel’.
The Guide to the Perfect Family paints the perfect picture of what a family is. All things look good from afar. From the struggles of being a parent to children feeling suffocated by their parents to face many internal problems, the film shows it all. The Guide to the Perfect Family is an interesting film, with a more interesting screenplay. It is also a good film to be watched by children and parents, if not together.
You can watch The Guide to the Perfect Family on Netflix.
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