[rating=7.00]
A parent’s worst fears are realized when their child becomes a Juggalo. Fans of the Insane Clown Posse are, according to the internet, the worst of the worst. Loud, brash, violent, crude, oversexed, drugged up, moronic, thugs so dangerous they’re considered a gang by the FBI. Reading about Juggalos online is akin to reading about the armies of hell marching forth from the fiery pits to make havoc on earth. They are, surely, a sign of the end.
Until you get to know one, of course. Most Juggalos are…pretty normal. Their devotion to ICP may be difficult to understand—from their bizarre rise in the 90s to today, they’ve been one of the stranger, scarier groups to ever make a dent on pop culture—but when you get down to it, it’s all love. Nothing I’ve said here is any different from anything anyone else has ever said about Juggalos (FBI notwithstanding) but there’s a truth to it that’s undeniable. At the end of the day, the difference between a Juggalo and a member of any other fandom, or really anyone at all, is a lot thinner than you might think.
Still, it can be difficult to come to that conclusion at first. We don’t necessarily consider people who don clown makeup and have a fascination with hatchets to be entirely stable. So when your kid comes home one day screaming “whoop whoooop” it’s hard to know what to make of the situation. Writer/director Laura Steinel explores this scenario in her debut film, Family.
Kate (Taylor Schilling) is a high powered hedge fund executive with no time for family, friends, or anything except the high pressured need to succeed. Basic notions of propriety are beyond her comprehension and she doesn’t care who she hurts by her blunt assessments and observations. She’s naturally flustered when her brother and his wife (Eric Edelstein and Allison Tolman) need her to watch their daughter, Maddie (Bryn Vale) for the week to go take of her sister-in-law’s dying mother. Ever the outcast, Kate tries to teach Maddie how to stand up for herself and embrace her weirdness, which backfires when Maddie decides she’s going to become a Juggalo.
Backed by a stellar supporting cast that includes Bryan Tyree Henry (Atlanta) and Kate McKinnon, Family is all at once a hilarious look at suburban life and normality as well as a shockingly reverent look inside the world of Juggalos. At its heart, Family is a film about embracing your unique otherness, whatever that might mean, and learning to be comfortable in your own skin.
Kate and Maddie’s arcs largely mirror each other, with both characters learning how to be more comfortable with themselves and finding their places in their respective lives. While Steinel’s script sometimes suffers under the weight of its lofty ambition, there’s a poignancy to the story that largely masks many of the film’s faults.
The title of the film is a two-fold pun, working to explain both Kate and Maddie’s emotional arcs. Kate needs to find a way to connect with her existing family while Maddie needs a way to find her extended family. Juggalos, as you may or may not know, refer to their Juggalo brethren and sistren as their “family.” The course of the film finds them both searching for the kinds of connections they’ve previously been lacking, and largely the film works.
While I wish Family had delved deeper into the bizarre world of Juggalos and the Dark Carnival, Steinel never approaches her subjects from a place of superiority and you can see that their existence in this film comes from a place of respect. Steinel understands what outsiders Juggalos are, and here they’re used as metaphors for outsiders in a more general sense. By doing so, she’s allowed to explore the softer, gentler side of Juggalos that doesn’t often get noticed in the culture at large.
Family is now playing in select theaters.
Read our interview with writer/director Laura Steinel here.
