Genre Country Director Actor

Private Property

aka Nue propriété, Joachim Lafosse, 2006

Star Review

In this shrewd family drama, Isabelle Huppert plays a weary middle-aged divorcee who longs to break away from family life with her two sons, both in their early twenties but who act like bullish teenagers, continually fighting each other and failing to get jobs. When she flirts with the idea of selling the house to finance a B&B with her lover, her sons rebel and the family dynamic alters radically.
Any film that opens with a dedication à nos limites suggests that boundaries are about to be broken, and so it proves in the opening scene, in which Huppert tries on sexy lingerie in front of a mirror whilst her two sons make inappropriate innuendo in the background. As the latest entry in the recent rise of Belgian realism (Private Property breathes the same air as the work of the Dardenne brothers), this captures some uncanny moments of human fallibility, such as the many fraught dinner scenes. Huppert is marvellous as always, and special mention should go to Jérémie Renier, so promising in The Child, who makes his thuggish character surprisingly sympathetic.

Alex Davidson on 7th February 2008

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