The movie
The Sparrow in the Chimney (English subtitles)
A family gathering at Karen's (an entrancing Maren Eggert) country house simmers with tension until things finally explode in Ramon Zürcher's 'elegantly vicious' (Variety) psychodrama.
Description
Karen (the entrancing Maren Eggert) lives with her husband Markus (Andreas Döhler) and their children in her idyllic childhood country home. Karen’s sister Jule (Britta Hammelstein) and her family are visiting for Markus’s birthday, a fact sure to lead to friction given how different the two women are. Grim reminders of their deceased mother poison the air, while Karen’s rebellious daughter continues to rebel and her strange son does something rather nasty to the family cat… The stage is set for Ramon Zürcher’s (The Girl and the Spider) beautifully controlled yet incendiary tale of family discord and renewal.
‘This darkly engrossing psychodrama of pent-up domestic tensions should be an arthouse breakthrough for Switzerland's gifted Zürcher brothers… Ramon and Silvan Zürcher’s elegantly vicious domestic horror movie… forensically unpicks the compacted resentments, betrayals and traumas underpinning a single weekend family gathering.’ – Guy Lodge, Variety