Brief History of a Family

Lin Jianjie's 2024 debut feature is about a middle-class family in China after the one-child policy. Into the ordered life of a biologist father, a mother who was once a flight attendant and their only son Wei comes a boy from school named Shuo. Shuo is quiet, well mannered and hard working; he starts coming to the house, then stays, and increasingly looks like the ideal son. That is where the tension is built: the more the family takes to him, the less certain Wei's place becomes, and expectations nobody has spoken surface. The film explains nothing; Shuo's past and his intentions stay uncertain to the end. The photography is cold and symmetrical, the house shot like a laboratory. It screened at Sundance. Who it's for: viewers who like cold psychological thrillers and contemporary Chinese cinema. Who it's not for: anyone waiting for answers; the film gives none.