A Family (2026) Movie Drinking Game
Take a Drink: for every fight
Take a Drink: for attempts to curry favor or score points
Take a Drink: for physical activities
Do a Shot: for panic attacks
By: Henry J. Fromage (Two Beers) –
One of the principal joys of checking out films from the sidebars of major film festivals is the chance to see the art form’s next major voices. Director Mees Peijnenburg makes a statement
A Family is set in the for now still intact Yugoslavia in 1991, as a family is forced to look abroad for a future due to an utter lack of prospects in their homeland. We view their journey and struggles acclimating to their new home through the eyes of 6 year old Maja, who is forced to grow up and take on responsibilities fast.
A Toast
Peijnenburg drops us right into the familial drama at play, as brother and sister read statements to a court officer or social worker about their feelings and desires in regards to the impending or actualized divorce of their parents. The teenage sister is a bit antagonistic towards both parents and the upheaval in her life, while the young brother just wants everyone to be together again.
He then proceeds to follow each in distinct chapters from both of their points of view- both in the terms of plot and stylistically. He deploys a roving, naturalistic camera, with lots of close-ups putting these remarkable young actors in particular on the spot.
The daughter’s story, told first, is focused on the toll it is taking on her emotionally, particularly in her nascent relationship with another girl that is sweet until any hint of conflict sets her doubting. The son’s story really brings home how nasty this particular divorce is, however, as both parents overtly jockey for position with him, perhaps feeling that unlike his older sister, he’s still too naive to see how he’s being used in their attempts to convince the courts of the righteousness of their position vis a vis the others’ fitness to parent.
It all comes together in a third chapter that they share, which avoids the dramatic fireworks we seem to have been building to in favor of their realization that, for now at least, they have the family grounding they desperately need in each other.
Beer Two
For all of the willingness to let this story play out naturally, the script can help but say the quiet part out loud occasionally, like the daughter and her girlfriend having a small fight and then wondering aloud “we’re not like them, are we?”
Verdict
A Home is a very personal dive into the anxieties of a Ukrainian filmmaker through the lens of a near-future, post-war world.
