Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

In 1973, PBS aired reality show 'An American Family' after filming the Loud family for a year. It's 1971 in Santa Barbara. Filmmaker Craig Gilbert (James Gandolfini) meets Pat Loud (Diane Lane) but she's reluctant at first. Her confident Nixon-supporting often-absent womanizing husband Bill (Tim Robbins) is more interested. They have four kids. Lance (Thomas Dekker) is the gay son in NYC that Bill is still clueless about. Kevin (Johnny Simmons) and Grant (Nick Eversman) have their band. Delilah is the 16 year old having fun. Michelle (Kaitlyn Dever) is the youngest. Newlyweds Susan (Shanna Collins) and Alan Raymond (Patrick Fugit) are filming them.I don't know how much of this has been fictionalized. It feels very over-dramatized. In many ways, this movie is misguided. A film about the Louds would be fine. This is about the show about the Louds. It's the filmmaking and the process behind the scenes that is more important. This is trying too hard to recreate the TV show. The use of the old footage side-by-side with the new footage only re-enforces that idea. It's at best a recreation of the behind-the-scene story. Gilbert's conflict with the Raymonds is probably the best moments of this film. The personal drama of the family is good but without the cameras would be just another personal movie. This should be more about the filmmakers than about the family.

PBS was a pioneer in many areas of what is seen in television today. The impact "An American Family" had on our culture cannot be measured; it was something like no American audiences had experienced before. The openness of the Louds being themselves on a weekly basis was revolutionary at best. "Cinema Variete" wants to take today's viewers to the story behind the reality show.The ideal American family was found for producer Craig Gilbert by a friend of the Louds, who thought they would be perfect for what the producer wanted to achieve. Pat and Bill Loud had four children and led a comfortable life in Santa Barbara, California. Pat was a woman that exuded intelligence, as noted during her first encounters with Gilbert. She had her doubts about how the program would play, but evidently she thought it would be a great idea, but little did she suspect how it would change her life, and that of her family. Bill Loud was something else, he was a philandering man if he was given the opportunity to have sex outside the home.The film concentrates on the technical aspects more than in the family members. The only one that is showcased was Lance, a young man obviously in awe of himself and his wit. Santa Barbara was perhaps too provincial for him to express his artistic bent, so he fled to New York where he was able to be what he wanted to be in an open atmosphere, away from his parents and small town gossip. The other kids are not even given a thought in the film, even though they were prominently seen in the weekly programs.Robert Pulcini and Sharon Springer Berman share the directorial credit. The screenplay is by David Seltzer who tried to explain the new phenomenon on public television in a film format. Because of the limitations trying to condense the series into something that resemble a movie, the creators only touch on their subject without going too deep behind the real family.Diane Lane's Pat is one of the best things we have actually seen her do in recent memory. Her resemblance to the real Pat Loud is uncanny. Tim Robbins take on Bill is not quite right, although he also resembled the man he is portraying. James Gandolfini plays Craig Gilbert, a man with a vision that revolutionized the way we watched television shows. Thomas Dekker is seen as the flamboyant Lance Loud.

I struggled painfully through the first one-half or so of this film but finally felt it necessary to abandon it. It seemed to have the usual characteristics of an Indie flick conceived, written, produced, directed, edited, etc. etc. by a couple of something wannabes.It was interesting, but more-so disturbing, to see that four high caliber actors had for some reason agreed to perform in this catastrophe. I highly doubt that any of them were in need of the money. So I can only conclude that they simply needed something-to-do, each of them recognizing that their respective stellar screen records would not be tarnished in the least by this endeavor.My apologies to anyone who is offended by this evaluation, but I feel obligated to call 'em the way I see 'em.

This movie is about the first reality TV show. It was about the Louds, a family where the wife and husband are distant, and they have one son that moves out and seems to be gay, and the other children live at home. For most of the film, the family has little drama and doesn't look to be that interesting. Then the wife, Pat, finally has enough of Bill's cheating and decides to leave him on camera. She's sort of pushed to this point by the shows creator, whom lets her know about Bill's recommended actresses.At the end, you get to see the real people in TV clips, and the actors did a good job looking like them. Also we find out the real TV show had very high ratings. If only the shows creators could have seen some of the shows it would lead too.FINAL VERDICT: Interesting, catch it on cable if you can