It's rare to come across a YU/Serbian movie that gets it right in most departments. The first requirement for a successful comedy is already fulfilled with the good casting. Dravic and Samardzic are as good a couple as one could ever hope for in a Balkan comedy. She is cute, charismatic, funny, and vivacious (much like Goldie Hawn, only better) and Samardzic is his usual likable, goofy, good-natured self.
Atypically, the script is at the level of the very good cast. This is rarely the case with YU/Serbian films in which the norm is that the cast is much better than the bad or average material, which results in actors trying to eke out a few drops of quality out of inferior scripts. There are none of those useless "filler" scenes that are so typical of this region. Instead, this time the script is tight, i.e. time isn't wasted/padded on irrelevant nonsense.
The flawed premise is the movie's continual (minor) problem: the moving. The fact that the ENTIRE family has to move every time Samardzic gets a new bridge-building assignment makes no sense. The solution to their "problem" is simple: Samardzic should travel to his new place of work alone and then come back to his family when he finishes the project. Obvious, huh? That's how 100 million couples live. And yet, this totally sensible – and very obvious – option is treated as if it doesn't even exist. Never once is it even mentioned. Of course it isn't, otherwise the movie's entire premise would crumble like a house of cards.
The only other flaw is Budimir's "suave" friend. He is rather absurd for a 17 year-old, a typically filmic, entirely fictional character. He is inexplicably DUBBED by an adult actor (the voice provided by Dravic's real-life husband, Dragan Nikolic) which makes him sound unnatural hence a little irritating. The kid playing him is bland, apathetic and a bad actor (yes, yet another nepotist); he looks severely bored. I am also mystified as to why he'd refer to Neda Arneric as "fat".
The movie rarely falls into typical Balkan cinematic traps – such as the psychiatrist-evaluation scene in which the doctor inexplicably tests Budimir in front of his entire family, and then even more inexplicably kicks him out of his office.
Atypically, the script is at the level of the very good cast. This is rarely the case with YU/Serbian films in which the norm is that the cast is much better than the bad or average material, which results in actors trying to eke out a few drops of quality out of inferior scripts. There are none of those useless "filler" scenes that are so typical of this region. Instead, this time the script is tight, i.e. time isn't wasted/padded on irrelevant nonsense.
The flawed premise is the movie's continual (minor) problem: the moving. The fact that the ENTIRE family has to move every time Samardzic gets a new bridge-building assignment makes no sense. The solution to their "problem" is simple: Samardzic should travel to his new place of work alone and then come back to his family when he finishes the project. Obvious, huh? That's how 100 million couples live. And yet, this totally sensible – and very obvious – option is treated as if it doesn't even exist. Never once is it even mentioned. Of course it isn't, otherwise the movie's entire premise would crumble like a house of cards.
The only other flaw is Budimir's "suave" friend. He is rather absurd for a 17 year-old, a typically filmic, entirely fictional character. He is inexplicably DUBBED by an adult actor (the voice provided by Dravic's real-life husband, Dragan Nikolic) which makes him sound unnatural hence a little irritating. The kid playing him is bland, apathetic and a bad actor (yes, yet another nepotist); he looks severely bored. I am also mystified as to why he'd refer to Neda Arneric as "fat".
The movie rarely falls into typical Balkan cinematic traps – such as the psychiatrist-evaluation scene in which the doctor inexplicably tests Budimir in front of his entire family, and then even more inexplicably kicks him out of his office.