Unrelated (2007) - Joanna Hogg

Going through a rough patch in her marriage, forty-something year-old Anna needs a change in her life.  In an effort to get away, Anna decides to spend a summer holiday with her friends Verena and George at their Tuscan villa.  On her arrival at their home, Anna finds herself gravitating towards the couple's teenage children and specifically their cousin Oakley, who Anna forms an instant bond with.  When the teenagers accidentally damage a car the family borrowed, Anna finds herself stuck in-between the young and old members of the family, leading her to come to terms with her own life.  Joanna Hogg's Unrelated is a quiet character study of a woman dealing with personal strife.  For much of the film Hogg keeps the viewer in the dark to what exactly troubles our main protagonist, keeping an observant eye focused on her as she interacts with this family unit.  Even though Unrelated is Hogg's first feature, her impressive staging of sequences is very prevalent throughout the film, visually expressing its characters in a way that could only be described as clinical in approach.  Sprinkled throughout the narrative are scenes with Anna on the phone with her husband, as they slowly try to articulate their feelings.  Joanna Hogg shoots these scenes almost entirely in wide-shots, creating a sense of loneliness in Anna who only has the sparse Italian countryside to keep her company.  Unrelated slowly and methodically reveals the troubles which exist in this family unit, as they slowly bubble to the surface throughout the film's running time.   Through Anna's eyes we understand that even a seemingly perfect situation is often far from it, and with Anna seeing her own friend's family struggles she begins to appreciate her own life, and what she has in her husband Alex.

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