Plot
An average French family ostensibly celebrates a birthday in a restaurant. In one evening and during one meal, family history, tensions, collective and separate grudges, delights, and memories both clash and coalesce. Indeed, poking each other's sore spots turns out to be the main order of business. Henri (Bacri) runs a saloon that he inherited from his father called "The Sleepy Dad," and in the near-empty bar, he plays host to several members of the family as they mark the 35th birthday of his sister-in-law, Yolande (Frot). Henri's sister, Betty (Jaoui), is 30, single, and not very happy about it; his brother (and Yolande's husband), Philippe (Yordanoff), is an executive in a growing software company; Mother (Maurier) is the siblings' strong-willed matriarch; and Henri's paralyzed dog is on hand, whom someone describes as "like a rug, but alive." It's not been a good day for most of them: Philippe is anxious that his boss might not have liked the tie he wore on television; Betty is depressed about the sad state of her current relationship; Henri has just learned that his wife is leaving him; and Mother is tossing caustic barbs at everyone left and right. Henri's bartender Denis (Darroussin) is the one neutral party on hand, and he provides the voice of reason in the midst of the bickering.
Read more about this topic: Family Resemblances
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)