User Reviews

Others in this string have pointed out, justifiably, how much this film tries to catch the tone of a Wes Anderson film - and fails quite badly. When a film is pretty much wall-to-wall narration, you know that the writers simply could not find their way into the story. The first 10 minutes are pure, raw exposition - mostly about the past of the parents - information that is supposed to by dryly ironic and funny - it is neither. After laying so much expositional pipe, the writers then proceed to ignore the emotional heart of the story - the children. They labour under the false impression that this is a story about the parents (they can't even decide on which parent is the actual protagonist!) almost completely overlooking the far, far richer ground offered by the kids. The nature/nurture debate is barely dramatized - instead, we are presented a series of more-or-less discrete episodic events that never accrete to form as world we can accept and believe in. There is never a really, deeply felt and earned moment of self realisation on the part of the parents - no, "OMG, what have we done!" moment that would at least redeem them somewhat. But this does not deter the filmmakers from forcing a completely unearned moment of reconciliation at the end when the family is momentarily reunited at the kid's private school and watch, gormless and idiotically, as their family history of warm intimate moments unspools in one of the son's film project. Didn't the director understand that these moments, or at least some of them, had to have been seen prior to this moment? Didn't he realized that we, as an audience, had to live through at least some of these good times in order for the little home movie to mean something to us? The screenplay is truly awful - poorly structured, much too reliant on voice-over, lingers far too long on irrelevant and redundant exposition and never gets under the skin of the characters. the greatest fault is perhaps that the filmmakers could never decide who story they wanted to tell. What is worst for English Quebec cinema is that the filmmakers had everything they needed to be successful: a great cast, a committerd producer, lovely cinematography, beautiful locations - they just forgot to bring the essentials; imagination and a script doctor who would have put them right. This is a poor sophomore feature effort from the team who did the spare but excellent "Whitewash."

The story: Millionaire wants glory, so he pays 1,4 million dollars so that 2 scientists can home school 3 kids for 12 years, to make them the opposite of what their parents are, in order to prove that nurture is more influential to child development than their DNA (nature). The 2 scientists have one biological kid, so they train him to be an artist, because that's supposed to be the opposite of a scientist. The 2 other kids are adopted: a girl from a family of idiots (so they'll teach her to be a genius), and a boy from a family of aggressive people (so they'll teach him be a peace guru). After some years, the millionaire says their kids are average, and they gotta push the kids further. So the mom thinks there's something wrong with the kids and brings a friend who tells them they are alright. The dad tries harder, making weird psychological experiments. They emotionally break up. The children get away from them. The millionaire says: Well, you guys did a major mistake, so you gotta pay me the 1.4 million dollars back, according to our contract. BUT, the truth is I've been experimenting on you. I wanted to see how far people who think are doing good will do unethical things. So if you let me write a book about that, I'll waiver the money debt, for me being able to publish a book about you without any of you having a say on it. They sign. The book comes out saying bad things about the scientists, it gets to number 17 on the most bought books. The kids read it. The scientists barge in their schools to talk to them. The kids are annoyed they've been lied to. The scientists tell them it wasn't all a lie, and they love the kids. The scientists are carried away from the school. On a second meeting the kids are fine with the scientists. At the end, one of the kids is an artist, another is an activist, and the last is a lawyer. Not the story/ my opinion: The millionaire was doing a lot of hooker and cocaines, before and after the book project. It makes no sense for him to pay 1.4 million dollars on this project, not even if his intent was to write some other book. The two scientists are far from intelligent, rational, planned or even knowledgefull about child psychology (even though that has been their job for 12 years). The way that those kids get adopted, get taken away from the scientists, and are still put in a very expensive school makes no sense. The way the scientists have problems with the kids listening to rock and roll, and reading porn, but don't care that all of them are making tribal paintings on their faces makes no sense. The fact that these scientists would only be parenting/ teaching these kids and have no more work beside that makes no sense. None of the characters are charismatic or slightly intelligent. The way that these 3 homeschooled kids can easily socialise, take leadership positions, say weird without getting bullied makes no sense. There's a point in the movie, where the kids are staging a play based on a book, and the dad says that the play was bad, because one of the kids was narrating, and that the story should flow from the actors. BUT HE DIDN'T WRITE THE BOOK (which means the scientist is an idiot)! AND THE MOVIE IS NARRATED (which means the movie is acknowledging that the movie is bad)! So, in conclusion, if this movie was an experiment, what would we have learned from it? That no matter how much money a mediocre person is given (the scientist, and the writer of the movie, and director, and actors), the result will be mediocre as well (kids, and the score on the imdb), and it will make no sense for that person to have been given that amount of money.

Its always cool, when you randomly pick a movie to watch and its not only good, but interesting as well... Two scientists meet, accidentally touch hands, they fall in love, get married, get pregnant, then decide to use that child as a guinea pig in a social experiment... nature vs nurture, or raise the child totally to defy their genetic disposition, and while they're at it, they'll adopt two more to run similar experiments with... Its like this... they adopt a daughter, that came from a family of really dumb people, I mean really dumb, but they are going to raise her as if she's going to be wicked smaht. They also adopt a son, who's past relatives lean towards the criminal and violent side, and they raise him as a pacifist... And their own boy, a child born of two scientists, they will raise as an artist, the uni-boob, is one of my favorite pieces of his art. Does it blow up in their face? Well I won't tell, but seriously though, if it didn't blow up in their faces would there be a movie??? Well acted and a cool story. Oh, did I mention its a dark comedy. Go for it!! Filmbufftim on FB.

This is what all happens in the film: 1) Two scientists (Ben and Catherine) marry, and decide to raise kids as an experiment to prove power of nurture over nature. One would be their own son, Luke, with scientific inheritance but would be raised as an artist. Another one would be the daughter (Maya) of ordinary middle class people but would be raised as an intellectual. The third one, Maurice, with family history of violence and anger would be raised as a pacifist in Gandhian ideology.

2) They approach a rich man (Mr. Gertz) who is interested in science and ask for funds. He agrees as he finds their idea groundbreaking.

3) They raise the children on a secluded country-side house which belongs to Ben's forefathers. One of them is an assistant (Samsonov) hired by Gertz to help the family as well as keep a record of "parenting experiment".

4) The experiment goes wrong and children become frustrated by their parents and their ways of treating them. Specially the father who is focused on doing anything in the name of science (showing his son pornographic pics of nude women and ask him to convert his sexual desire by performing a dance while looking at the pics) while the mother is shocked to see their moral behaviors (they act out a sex scene while performing a play from a pornographic novel), especially their sexual development and thoughts.

5) Mother becomes ill, possibly depressed, and her doctor advises to go on a leave of few days outside their residence. After some clashes between the parents, they decide for the holiday. While this trip is being planned, children decide to run away from house and injure parents and the assistant by the car.

6) Court takes away the kids and sends them to a special care school while parents separate from each other. Meanwhile, Gertz tells them that the parents have to pay him $1.4 million as the experiment has failed. He also discloses another experiment that he was doing on Morin family with the help of Samsonov, where he was recording the behaviors of parents and the whole family. So he puts another choice in front of them. They have to sign a document where they will have no objection to whichever way Gertz publishes the results of his two experiments. If they accept this condition, they he will relieve them of that repay of fund money. They both agree to this.

7) The story takes a turn when through a book, the kids come to know about the experiment their parents were doing on them. Parents apologize to them and the family reunites.

The film lacks emotions, becomes boring, is highly predictable, and does not excite at any point. Ben is a very lethargic character, who seems over-exhausted throughout the movie, as if he is doing some great science which is not shown anywhere. Except few places like where he does a maze experiment where he sets up a furnace and asks the daughter to move a rat through the maze and decide which direction rat has to take. One of her decisions throws the rat in the furnace and the girl screams out of guilt and fear. The experiment looked even poorer than a 6th grade model. Most lacking thing from the movie was almost zero depictions of any real experimental stuff. There was really no science anywhere.

Catharine, the mother, looked like a typical mother throughout the movie, and not any great scientist doing some family experiment. She is a worried mother, who is concerned about her children getting aggressive or displaying immoral sexual acts. She is bothered about where this whole experiment thing is going and doesnt find herself comfortable in continuing this "science". Then she gets depressed by all the family stress and decides to take medicines. Her husband is careless and does weird science discussions or has those thoughts. She seems to be the one who is concerned in putting family together and father is following her all the time. Ben is a confused scientist and a confused father who doesn't have any clue to what he is doing. He reads about some new scientific finding and begins to implement on the kids, which obviously kids dislike (like giving beans for dinner and throwing away TV).

The movie brings issues of ethical science into discussion when Gertz threatens Morin family with the publication of his findings regarding the sort of experiment he was attempting on the Morins. His experiment sounded unethical and cruel.

The best part is that the film makes a satire on scientific researches involving humans and capitalist market exploiting science for its own needs. Gertz is a rich man with enough money inherited to invest in science. But he cares least about any good science and in turn wants to earn fame and recognition through unethical practices. He is apathetic to the emotions of a family for the sake of his pride and fame. He exploits scientists as well as a family.

Overall, the movie is a good watch, a different story and a must watch. Film justifies family bonds and emotional ties over the abstract ideology of science. There are certain elements inherent to human nature which science can not capture under any objective lens. More than nurture vs nature, it was film about subjectivity vs objectivity, real vs abstract, and science vs emotions. The kids turn out to be different from what their parents were experimenting for. Finally it was the personal experience that wins in the end, and neither nature nor nurture.