I think this is one of those films that will separate viewers into two groups: those who had supremely dysfunctional upbringings and can relate, and those who grew up in Brady families and think this stuff doesn’t really happen and therefore aren’t able to get it.

Me, I’m pretty much the same age as Frank (i.e. I was 13 in 1986), and my parents had the opposite relationship to Joan and Bernard (my Dad was the slut and my mother was the bitter, grasping-at-desperation intellectual).

I found this film to be charming and even funny at times, but beneath all that I was disturbed beyond belief to be shown a mirror in such a clever way. I wasn’t as depraved as Frank, but I certainly see a lot of my fucked-up teenage behaviour in Walt.

Two lasting highlights of this film for me were the name choices (it couldn’t have been better than Joan, Bernard, Walt, and Frank), and of course the haunting image of the squid and the whale in the museum. I will definitely watch this film again at some point once I’ve had a chance to fully absorb the initial viewing.