The Family Fang

We’ve seen instances of parents frustrated that their adult children refuse to grow up. But The Family Fang offers a role reversal.

This offbeat dysfunctional family saga sidesteps clichés with its tale of adult children trying to escape the past — specifically, a family legacy of practical jokes that straddled the line between performance art and child abuse.

Baxter (Jason Bateman) is a struggling writer, and his sister Annie (Nicole Kidman) is a fledgling actress. But flashbacks from 30 years ago reveal them as “Child A” and “Child B” in a series of disturbing conceptual pranks engineered and filmed by their parents — free spirits whose life work is based on shaking up innocent bystanders in the name of satire.

When the adult kids return home to regroup, their father (Christopher Walken) starts planning more mischief, except the kids aren’t willing to play along. He takes that slight personally, and his passive-aggressive retaliation reveals his true nature as a mean-spirited control freak. Then the parents disappear suddenly, and evidence suggests they might have been murdered. But is it just another elaborate hoax?

The subversive screenplay by David Lindsay-Abaire (Rise of the Guardians), based on a novel by Kevin Wilson, doesn’t offer much insight into the artistic process or showbiz families — although its peek into a clan of offbeat performance artists is moderately intriguing.

Bateman’s second directorial effort (after Bad Words) includes some visual flair, deft tone juggling, and solid performances. Background details paint Baxter and Annie as socially awkward siblings whose erratic behavior stems from an unstable childhood that perhaps was unhealthy and borderline abusive.

At its core, The Family Fang is a story of arrested development (no pun intended, given Bateman’s involvement) and the lingering effects of childhood emotional trauma. Were they geniuses or charlatans (as one character speculates)? Was the lasting impact innocent or dangerous? At any rate, there’s plenty of resentment to go around.

The climactic mystery doesn’t have the same impact, and neither does the film’s broader exploration of the interactive nature of art. However, some of the spontaneous pranks are actually clever and amusing, as much for their effect on the perpetrators as the intended victims.

So even if the payoff isn’t as satisfying as the buildup — in part because of a far-fetched contrivance that drives the third act — the film has some quirky fun getting there.

Rated R, 106 minutes.