This is a movie about fathers and sons - It's ALL relative, in fact, and not just the male kind. It deals with the importance of keeping in touch and coming closer together before death or ideals conspire to separate you permanently.
It would be foolish to deny that it has a pedestrian pace; but careful viewing will reveal that each member of this family is manfully wrestling in different ways with the prospect of getting old before their time, so with such preoccupations it was never going to be swinging giddily from one mishap to the next. When people get self-absorbed and need to find direction in life, they often slow down to take stock; and the deliberate manner with which the screenplay tends to unfold things is a reflection of that. Certain people were no doubt disappointed, I feel, because they might have sat down expecting a more purposeful plot - whereas what is delivered instead is really more of an episodic musing on familial bonds.
For all those old-school Kirk Douglas fans who moan that here he's nothing like he was in his 'glory days' - they're right, he isn't; but the scene where his character finds his wife dead was still without doubt the most affecting in the movie. Even if he does give an "old man's" performance, he's playing an old man; so there's nothing more appropriate, is there?!
"It Runs in the Family" is a slow-burner with abstract themes - it never had 'box-office hit' written all over it in the first place. There's nothing particularly revelatory to be found in this film, but it's well-written and well acted; comfortable in its own skin, and sometimes that's good enough.
It would be foolish to deny that it has a pedestrian pace; but careful viewing will reveal that each member of this family is manfully wrestling in different ways with the prospect of getting old before their time, so with such preoccupations it was never going to be swinging giddily from one mishap to the next. When people get self-absorbed and need to find direction in life, they often slow down to take stock; and the deliberate manner with which the screenplay tends to unfold things is a reflection of that. Certain people were no doubt disappointed, I feel, because they might have sat down expecting a more purposeful plot - whereas what is delivered instead is really more of an episodic musing on familial bonds.
For all those old-school Kirk Douglas fans who moan that here he's nothing like he was in his 'glory days' - they're right, he isn't; but the scene where his character finds his wife dead was still without doubt the most affecting in the movie. Even if he does give an "old man's" performance, he's playing an old man; so there's nothing more appropriate, is there?!
"It Runs in the Family" is a slow-burner with abstract themes - it never had 'box-office hit' written all over it in the first place. There's nothing particularly revelatory to be found in this film, but it's well-written and well acted; comfortable in its own skin, and sometimes that's good enough.