Cinefranco: The Easy Way Out Review

The Easy Way Out (2014)

Cast: Laurent Lafitte, Agnès Jaoui, Benjamin Biolay
Director: Brice Cauvin
Country: France
Genre: Comedy | Drama

Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage of the 2015 Cinéfranco Francophone International Film Festival. For more information visit cinefranco.com and follow Cinefranco on Twitter at @cinefranco.

A man enters the frame, swallowed by the world that quietly oppresses him with impossible decisions as he tries to hold back tears and make sense of what it is to be an adult filled with regret and uncertainty. He yearns for a more fulfilling life, but we are often incapable of escaping the bonds that we willfully resign to when we begin our adult lives. Leaving a relationship is sometimes the most obvious choice, but relationships often create complacency and comfort that is terrifying to let go of. We are never really sure if staying or leaving is the right decision as both choices lead to pain, but pain is a necessary part of growth and stagnation only serves to fill us with false comfort as our soul slowly dies.

The Easy Way Out is filled with imperfect visual compositions presenting life as it actually happens, showing cluttered and functional spaces that feel like home.

Sibling dynamics don’t change much with time and a breakfast table is a theater for personality conflicts that emerged before anyone knew what their adult selves would look like. Despite age old conflicts and the irritations that come with the stubbornly unchanging personalities of other people, the siblings of this charmingly crazy family have a deep understanding of one another. The failing health of their father brings the group together and dynamic personalities collide and create the mess of love, undercurrent of forgotten hostilities, and failed expectations that constitute a family.

A strong family has its own shortcomings and idiosyncrasies; old unspoken rules that were established long before love interests and eventual spouses entered the picture. It becomes difficult for even the strongest of personalities to acclimate to these old familial rituals and convoluted relationship dynamics. The dance for acceptance combined with the uncertainty that comes with adulthood and all its paperwork and propriety becomes the forefront and the relationship itself becomes secondary. By the time acceptance occurs the mind has already been wandering for other prospects. Choosing the correct sofa color is more urgent than assessing the status of the love in the relationship.

It’s hard not to get swept away by the chaotically charming lives of the members of this realistically dysfunctional family as they navigate major life events…

The Easy Way Out is filled with imperfect visual compositions presenting life as it actually happens, showing cluttered and functional spaces that feel like home. Each frame is filled with the intriguing chaos of creative minds, art covering every available wall, rolled up papers containing plans and dreams are haphazardly tucked away adding to the tapestry of the frame and showing the beautifully disquieted spirits of the characters. It’s hard not to get swept away by the chaotically charming lives of the members of this realistically dysfunctional family as they navigate major life events, tormented by the same uncertainty that leaves us second guessing every major life decision we’ve ever made. We are never given a roadmap for life and it is difficult to know if we are on a path that will bring happiness and personal satisfaction, but the unknowing is what makes life interesting as we fumble through decisions that will dictate the rest of our lives and disrupt the dynamics of our dysfunctional families by adding new members with their own idiosyncratic personalities.