The Carriers Are Waiting

Roger loves his family, which does nothing to make life easier for them. He is obsessive, quick to anger, and full of strange schemes, and he works as a reporter on a paper he dislikes for money that does not cover much. Then he hears that the local business association is running a competition for any family that can break a world record, with a new car as the prize. His idea: his son will open and close a door forty thousand times in twenty-four hours. Fifteen-year-old Michel wants no part of it, so his father builds a practice door in the garden and finds him a coach. Benoît Mariage's first film is shot in black and white and holds one of Benoît Poelvoorde's best performances. Even at its funniest, what is on screen is a boy being loved at him rather than loved.