Times Have Been Better

This film is in French and has english subtitles so beware....

I loved this film as it ties the families story together quite well. You don't get much background just a good starting point for the begining of the main action.

Each member of the family has a brief plot point in the film, each deals with personal as well as family issues.

Unlike alot of movies that try this type of mulitple plot story line "Times have been Better" ties the story together well and leaves you at a conclusion that is well rounded and leaves a mystery.(just a little)

Realmente me parecio una historia muy bonita, con algunas risas y sobre una historia de tolerancia de la familia y la importancia de la honestidad con ellos

THE best coming out to the parents movie ever! Unfortunately the Europeans just have the upper hand over their counterparts across the Atlantic when it comes to serious film making. You couldn't possibly touch more nerves, more accurately and more convincingly than this film does. You'll definitely laugh and will probably shed a tear too. It's a film that encourages you to love and to be stoic in the face of the consequences. And it proposes that there can be some sort of golden middle path in the catastrophe that is family life. Absolutely breathtaking!

I agree with the other reviewer who said this movie transcended the gay coming out theme of queer cinema. It's as much if not more a journey of the parents than of the child. The director, in the DVD extras, says as much, when he confesses that the gay son Jeremy, probably has the least interesting role in the cast. The eruption that results from Jeremy's news is more an exploration of the various reactions and the collisions of conscience and kindness the main characters have with eachother as a result. I particularly loved the idea that even though the parents are perceived by their children as left-wing liberal their reactions to their son's coming out are unexpected given their political stripe and their perception of themselves. The unexpectedness of the reactions and their emotional core are what make the script believable and the performances by Charlotte de Turckheim and Bernard Le Coq as mother and father, really are the centre of this story. A brilliant jewel box of a film, which has some pleasant surprises as the story is revealed.
Highly recommended.

Joe

"Times Have Been Better" is the story of a middle-class French family confronting a collection of long-simmering relationship problems in the aftermath of the much admired older son's announcement that he's gay. Just about everything about this film is intelligent and insightful (with the exception of the inept disc cover graphic.) All of the characters--gay son, younger brother, mother, father and assorted friends--are presented as real human beings owning a wide variety of hang ups, ambitions, egos and ongoing disappointments. Reliance on traditional coming out story cliches and stereotypes is generally well and creatively avoided in this particular family story, much to the benefit of the screenplay and the enjoyment of the viewer. The film's characters all eventually wise up in this film, but in plausible and intelligent ways. Interesting that this film was conceived and made in France. It's doubtful that the same effort could come out of Hollywood or even as an Indie production where these subjects have almost always been cliche-bound and focused on physical beauty over basic human behavior.