Let’s say you’re living in Buenos Aires and grandma gets a call to be the matron of honor in the wedding of a barely known relative in remote Misiones, a little nub of northern Argentina, and she wants the family to go with her. If your first thought was: “No good can come of that,” you’re on the right track.
Director Pablo Trapero stuffs a dozen members of an extended family–with his own grandmother, Graciana Chironi, playing the matriarch–into a 1956 Chevy Viking camper and sends them on their way toward the highlands on the border with Brazil. Given the familiar premise, the storytelling really needs to get rolling into new territory, but despite some nice performances (especially Chironi and Bernardo Forteza as Oscar, whose constant nursing keeps the old camper running–mostly), it never gets out of the predictable low gear.
Road hazards, in no particular order, include a makeout session between a boy and one of his girl cousins, a dental emergency, a brother-in-law trying to seduce his wife’s sister (with whom he may or may not have previously had a fling), a blown gasket, road-obstructing drunken cowboys, a child’s sandal lost out the window, a lack of gas stations and a makeout session between a boy and his other girl cousin.
The wedding site at the end of the road offers beautiful vistas overlooking Brazil, but it’s hardly worth the trip.
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“Rolling Family” opens Friday at Facets Cinematheque, 1517 W. Fullerton Ave.; 773-281-4114, facets.org/cinematheque. In Spanish, with English subtitles. Running time: 1:43.
No MPAA rating (mature themes, brief language).