The Misfortunates
De helaasheid der dingen
With great performances, superb direction and a wonderful score, Felix van Groeningen's alternately hilarious and poignant tale of the loser Strobbe brothers and the looking-to-get-out son of one of them mixes belly laughs with more introspective and thoughtful moments to great effect. "No one lays a finger on a Strobbe," is the brothers' battle cry, and they are a pugnacious and combustible lot: Petrol, Koen, Pieter and, most prominently, Marcel, the alcoholic father of teenaged Gunther. They've all landed back at their aged mother's spare hearth due to their particular problems: blackout drinking, compulsive gambling, non-stop whoring and chronic fighting. Not exactly solid-citizen types and certainly no role-models for Gunther.
About director:
Felix van Groeningen was born in Belgium and attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) in Ghent. He made the short film "50cc" (2000), before going on to write and direct several plays for his theatre collective, Kung Fu. His feature films are "Steve + Sky" (2004), "With Friends Like These" (2007), and "The Misfortunates" (2009).
Trailers:
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Match Point
2005 / UK, USA, Luxemburg / dir. Woody Allen
- Year: 2009
- Country: Belgium
- Runtime: 108 min.
- Director: Felix van Groeningen
- Screenwriters: Christophe Dirickx, Felix van Groeninge
- Actors: Kenneth Vanbaeden, Valentijn Dhaenens, Koen De Graeve, Wouter Hendrickx, Gilda De Bal
- Cinematographer: Ruben Impens
- Dialogs: Dutch
- Subtitles: Lithuanian, Russian
- Classification: N-16
