Viper In The Fist - 2004 - 6/10
AKA - Vipère au Poing
The boys live with grandma at the family chateau, unaware of their impoverished gentility.
Grandmama dies, however, and the parents grudgingly return from Vietnam.
Mother removes stoves from the boys’ rooms, decides they only need one blanket, cuts meals.
Removes them from boarding school, confiscates their toys, stabs hands when one speaks at the table.
She is determined to destroy their spirits.
The boys try to rebel, call their mother-from-hell “Freakso” behind her back, but they are so young.
Middle son is the strongest and the film becomes a battle of powerful wills.
Supposedly a watered-down version of Hervé Bazin’s novel of the same name.
