FULL HOUSE

The setting: a botched dinner party in which the kitchen becomes a refuge where hosts and guests come to cry, argue, complain and discuss the guest of honor, an old friend whom the hosts haven't seen in ten years, and who has now become a famous TV commentator. The honored guest remains physically offscreen but is very much at the heart of things in this adaptation of a successful 1991 stageplay, brought to the screen by Phillipe Muyl. The psychodrama revolves around the delicious and very up-to-date notion of the way media stardom upsets all relationships and throws everyone into a quandry of either sybaritic fawning or bitter self-reproach. As old strains between family members, friends and lovers come to a head, this wonderful ensemble of actors will remind everyone of certain quarrels, certain guests, certain evenings. In French with English subtitles.