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THE CARRIERS ARE WAITING Send This Review to a Friend
This Belgian-French co-production ranked among the more unusual and intriguing attractions in the 1999 New York Film Festival. In "The Carriers Are Waiting" a father (Benoit Poelvoorde) who earns a living as a photographer for a small town paper yearns for a better, more economically rewarding life. He focuses his ambition vicariously through his 15-year-old son (Jean-Francois Devigne) and fixes on a harebrained scheme, training his son to try to top a feat listed in the Guinness Book of World Records. How many times can a door be opened and shut within 24 hours?
The situation is both pathetic and funny as the poor kid is relentlessly trained for the big competition, the prize being a new car that the father covets. At times the film begins to seem like one of those derogatory Belgian jokes the French like to tell. But director Benoit Mariage, who co-wrote the screenplay, is more serious. He is zeroing in on the question of values and the effects of an obsessive father on his family, as well as on himself.
What counts most in society? The father learns an important lesson in the process of wreaking havoc on those closest to him. The acting is uniformly good and the film appears realistic even though the situation is so outlandish. An Artisan Entertainment release.
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