His Brother

His Brother is a sporadically effective look at two brothers, one of whom is dying. Thomas (Bruno Todeschini) is suffering from a mysterious blood disease which will inevitably claim his life, and makes the decision to reach out to his long-since estranged brother, Luc (Eric Caravaca). The majority of the film deals with their tentative attempts to get reacquainted while Thomas is treated within the walls of a sterile French hospital. It’s in those sequences that the film works best, as director Patrice Chéreau imbues the story with little touches that feel authentic (eg the overly cheerful manner in which the various nurses present themselves). Along those same lines, there’s an oddly compelling scene in which Thomas is shaved in preparation for surgery; it’s easy to imagine most viewers losing patience after around five minutes of this, but Chéreau’s unflinching style makes it impossible to look away. The problem with the film, then, is that it is, for the most part, not terribly interesting. Aside from an intriguing look at the daily minutia of a long-term hospital stay, there’s not much here to hold our interest. It certainly doesn’t help that the relationship between Luc and Thomas, the film’s focus, just isn’t all that intriguing, primarily because the film fails to provide an appropriately meaty backstory that would allow us to care (more time is spent on Luc’s homosexuality, which pretty much says it all). Still, there are a number of brutally honest moments here (eg the sequence in which Luc and Thomas’ father admits that he would’ve preferred Luc to have gotten the disease) and Chéreau should be commended for keeping the bleak tone consistent throughout.

**1/2 out of ****