Family Business product reviews

Family Business is another foreign Acorn TV exclusive, this time a French production. As the award-winning director, Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) said in his Golden Globe acceptance speech, "Once you overcome the one-inch tall barriers of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films." I think the same can be said for series as well.

There is something inextricably thrilling about legal dramas. Something about an empirically evidence-based judgement system that is resolved by subjective means. It allows any single piece of evidence or information to swing a case around and led to the opposite result. Crushing defeat or magnanimous victory, it could easily go either way.

Family Business manages to work within the genre well, despite having very few courtroom scenes. The series predominantly takes place at the firm and wastes little time in injecting drama into the lives of our primary characters. With a similar structure to most cop procedural and medical dramas, Family Business is an episodic series that swiftly changes into a more serialised format as our protagonists get dragged into their own businesses as a recipient rather than the donor.

There is a clear feminist streak in the show, with a primarily female-led cast and a focus on family law as opposed to criminal proceedings. This does mean that as is becoming more and more commonplace in female-led shows, the male characters are portrayed in a derogatory fashion, as either womanizing, misogynistic, manipulative, narcissistic, unintelligent, or just plain criminal, with their only redeeming factor coming in the form of an aesthetically pleasing appearance. if you can look past the biased nature of the genders being portrayed, however, there is much to enjoy.

The show tackles many subjects from emotional abuse and manipulation to alcohol and gambling addictions, shared custody, to blackmail and inherited assets. With near-on a full hour allocated to each case, Family Business delves into the subjects in reasonable depth, without getting too complicated for those of us that are uninitiated in the judicial system of France.

Visually, the series is well shot, with gorgeous set design, and the dialogue (while very cliche at times) doesn't impede in the goal of making you care about the characters. The series does forecast its direction in a not-so-subtle fashion, but what they do brilliantly, is to create a number of well-developed characters that the audience care about (whether it be in a positive or negative manner is irrelevant). We hate seeing someone being oppressed, manipulated or otherwise being taken advantage of, and the plethora of situations and three-dimensional characters make it very easy to empathise and sympathise with.

Family Business certainly has the potential to be as popular and engaging as Boston Legal or Law & Order: Special Victim's Unit.