The Mother of All Lies review – pursuing the truth of Morocco’s brutal dictatorship years

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Asmae El Moudir employs a delicate mix of handmade replicas and oral testimony to brilliantly evoke personal and collective trauma Between those who refuse to remember and those who struggle to forget, a tumultuous clash of minds occupies the centre of Asmae El Moudir’s inventive documentary, a prize-winner at last year’s Cannes film festival. Through a constellation of clay figurines and dollhouse-style miniature sets, most of which were constructed by El Moudir’s father, the director recreates her oppressive childhood in the Sebata district of Casablanca. Under the watchful eyes of her domineering grandmother Zahra, all personal photos are banished from the house, save for a picture of King Hassan II. The delicate mix of handmade replicas and oral testimony brilliantly evokes the personal and collective trauma that stem from Morocco’s “Years of Lead” – a period of state brutality under Hassan II’s dictatorial rule. Lingering on the nimble fingers of El Moudir’s father as he puts t
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Family Switch review – Netflix yuletide body-swap comedy is overstuffed

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Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms can’t save a lukewarm family comedy that’s over-reliant on potty humor and eye-rolling contrivances

There comes a time, in just about any modern family, when the youngest member of the household is old enough to warrant the commencement of “movie night”. About midway through the pandemic, when our daughter’s tastes graduated from Australian mermaid dramas to more palatable fare like The Baby-Sitters Club and Gilmore Girls, my husband and I celebrated by screening Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock films for our kids, who loved them as much as we did! But then the world opened back up, and personal preferences splintered off. Our son now likes watching football games, and football dramas, and while I can stand the latter, it’s hard to imagine subjecting his little sister to Friday Night Lights’ tequila shots and threesomes. Besides, she’d much rather hide away in her room and watch some Netflix show about cake.

That same streamer’s Family Switch, out in time for the holidays, is an arrow that was unapologetically calibrated to hit straight at the heart of the multi-gen-viewing dilemma. Directed by McG and starring Jennifer Garner (who also produced, and is as plucky and puckered as ever), the yuletide drama takes a more-the-merrier approach to the trading-places trope, offering a smorgasbord of stock characters for couch-bound viewers to relate to: the Walker family has something for everyone – Sporty, Techy, Wistful and Work-Obsessed. And like so many family units who are no longer living in lockdown, the once tight-knit household is unraveling, everyone drifting off into their own private directions. Might some old-fashioned living in other people’s shoes be the portal back to together time?

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