One of the most grimly funny poems of the past century is Philip Larkin’s “This Be the Verse,” with its opening salvo about how our parents invariably mess us up. Larkin used a saltier word for “mess,” but you get the idea. Parents make us who we are, and if we have siblings, our parents’ traits and legacies filter through the whole gang in various combinations. As Larkin wrote, “They fill you with the faults they had/ and add some extra, just for you.”

All humans come from parents, people whose genetic stamp we carry whether we like it or not. And, perhaps excluding cases where those same people did not raise us, their faults inform us if not, as Larkin claimed, fill us. In the world of film, there have probably been as many movies about families as there are love stories. We’re obsessed

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