Critics reviews

[The] metatextual casting and Herzog’s use of handheld camera emphasise the film’s hybrid quality... [A] surreal, strangely moving tragicomedy... ["Family Romance LLC"] might be staged, but it has a scrappy, fly-on-the-wall feel.

Scenes go on too long, awkward moments are allowed to hang in the air, conversations are filmed from one angle with no coverage—"Family Romance LLC" often looks and feels like it’s capturing reality more than filmed storytelling, and the metatextual approach enhances the entire experience... What defines a documentary has been a hot topic at festivals... [and] it’s nice to see one of history’s best filmmakers still experimenting with that question.

Crafting a film packing such a stripped-back caliber demands either innovation or delicacy, but “Family Romance, LLC” is neither elegant nor novel—it is a well-intentioned, albeit amateurish sketch of half-formed ideas and sporadically intriguing concepts.

We all settle for varying degrees of real and fake in our daily lives; here, Herzog pushes the audience to consider where their line is, and whether it might be further away from “genuine” than they might first assume.

"Family Romance, LLC" certainly plays out like a documentary, with some of the real-life subjects playing themselves. But we all know that it is scripted, with unmistakably Herzogian touches in dialog in it. The master filmmaker is, again, searching for that ecstatic truth.

Is "Family Romance, LLC" a docudrama? A meta-doc? Staged reality? However you define it, it’s enthralling, unsettling and typically Herzogian.

The scenario, which comprises the main thread of this hybrid work of fiction and documentary, gets knottier. Its creepy feeling is ameliorated, and eventually replaced by, an empathetic fascination.

Herzog, who also wrote the screenplay, clearly relishes the contradictions as he blurs the line between reality and drama (or is it deadpan satire?), but “Family Romance, LLC” can’t always bear the weight of the questions. Acting as his own camera operator, Herzog largely appears content to observe the ritual dance embedded in the multiple layers of artifice, and the film drags at times; its lean, vérité approach lacking the narrative thrust to fully engage.

A compelling curio from Werner Herzog, who investigates a strange real-life phenomenon through a fictional lens. It's worth watching, especially if you enjoy Herzog's lateral take on life, but it's hard not to wish he'd just made it as a straight documentary.

A less conceptually slippery dramatization could complicate the unusual professional-personal relationships, unencumbered by the need to stay true to Ishii’s real-life experiences. Conversely, a more straightforward documentary might address the bigger questions Herzog barely grazes in fictionalization. Family Romance, LLC straddles the line between the two tacts and finds no ecstatic truth there.

Emotion slips out despite diligent attempts to master it, forcing even those who stand to gain the most from hyper-controlled environments to eventually face the shakiness of their own ground.

"Family Romance, LLC" is another prime example of just how effective and unique [Herzog's] style can be... [He] takes an unconventional route, but manages to find emotional truth in this tender and funny story about modern relationships.