‘A Family’ review: Mees Peijnenburg follows ‘Paradise Drifters’ with fractured portrait of messy divorce

Dir: Mees Peijnenburg. Netherlands-Belgium. 2026. 89mins

The messy battlefield of divorce is seen through the eyes of two impressionable teenagers in A Family, the sophomore feature from London-based Dutch director Mees Peijnenburg (Paradise Drifters). Shot in milky summer light and with skittish camera movements, the film further confirms Peijnenburg’s keen eye for body language and read-between-the-lines detail, even if the overall result, split into three chapters, isn’t fully balanced.

Never has the time to bloom into a full-blown character study

After its premiere in Berlin’s Generation 14plus section, A Family, should see interest from festivals interested in young filmmakers and contemporary family dynamics. The presence of Game of Thrones’ Carice van Houten in the cast, and Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont as a co-producer, should also help attract attention.

The first 40 or so minutes are dedicated to Nina (Celeste Holsheimer), a 16-year-old blonde who’s into dancing and her just-as-blonde girlfriend, whose nuclear family is, of course, picture-perfect. Nina’s younger brother, Eli (Finn Vogels), gets the second, somewhat shorter chapter of the film to himself, though with a few overlapping scenes that suggest Nina isn’t aware of everything that’s going on in her sibling’s life. That said, the purpose of the film’s division into chapters doesn’t seem to have been to highlight two very different or mutually exclusive experiences, just to show two slightly different perspectives on the same situation.

In an indication of the somewhat schematic set-up of Peijnenburg and Bastiaan Kroeger’s screenplay, Nina follows dance lessons while Eli, too, is defined by a physical activity: swimming. They don’t seem to go to school, but nor are they caught in the typical summer-holidays vibe, when time stretches to infinity and nothing ever happens. Indeed, their parents (Van Houten and Flemish actor Pieter Embrechts) ensure that things happen every day. It’s more often of the depressing rather than the exciting variety, however, as both mum and dad try – sometimes knowingly and at other times unwittingly – to influence their offspring, who will soon have to choose where, and with whom, they will live now that their mother has moved out.

Refreshingly, Peijnenburg doesn’t directly blame either parent for the situation, with both clinging to their children as a last remnant of normalcy after what must have been a blistering breakup. And the screenplay, co-written by Peijnenburg with Bastiaan Kroeger, stays resolutely close to the teens, with the adults clearly serving as supporting players in the story of what their divorce has wrought on their children. Vogels and Holsheimer, neither of them newcomers despite their young age, are both fascinating to watch, with Vogels especially impressive. His character has few friends and is a young man of very few words, but his thoughts are clearly legible.

That said, with its relatively short running time, division into different parts and Peijnenburg’s otherwise commendable tendency to observe more than explain, A Family never has the time to bloom into a full-blown character study. Instead, there’s a strong sense of a complex situation that’s gone awry, with the kids suffering because of their parents’ mistakes, but without the film really getting under any of the characters’ skin. In this context, the third and shortest chapter feels somewhat unfocused and unmoored.