All Happy Families Are Alike

…But, per Tolstoy, “Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” A whole graveyard worth of skeletons come out of the closet and several megatons of bombshells are dropped in this series about the “family dynamic” as a kind of well-rehearsed narrative, and the fallout that occurs when one of the ensemble players suddenly decides to go off script. Mike Leigh got to the title Secrets & Lies first, but it could just as well be fitted to any of the films collected here, including works by Kon Ichikawa, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Thomas Vinterberg, Lee Chang-dong, and a host of others. Amidst home-for-the-holidays visits, it’s always welcome to remember: it could be worse.