The Art of Crying

Though it features elements of comedy and drama, The Art of Crying fails at both primarily due to the deadpan, irritatingly idiosyncratic sensibility that’s been hard-wired into to it by filmmaker Peter Schønau Fog. It certainly seems possible that Dutch viewers will find something here to embrace, though there’s little doubt that most viewers will be left furiously scratching their heads. The story – what little there is – revolves around a mentally-disturbed young boy who discovers that his father has a real talent for delivering emotionally-wrenching eulogies, and subsequently arranges further funerals whenever his pop is feeling down. The Art of Crying has been suffused with characters that are uniformly reprehensible; aside from the murderous kid, there’s the boy’s child-molesting father and detached, equally sociopathic sister. As such, the viewer is left grasping for a single reason to care about any of this – a problem that’s exacerbated by the unmistakably pointless vibe (the film goes absolutely nowhere).

*1/2 out of ****