As I’m sure pretty sure anyone reviewing this movie would agree, Cuckoo is an apt title, one that works on two levels. It’s set in a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world, but it’s also about genuinely deranged behavior by people who clearly do not comprehend just how far out of bounds their actions are.
The protagonists are what one could, if one were being generous, describe as relatively ordinary. Paterfamilias Luis (Marton Csokas) is on his second marriage, following the death of his first wife. He has a 17-year-old daughter, Gretchen (Euphoria star Hunter Schafer), and another, Alma (Mila Lieu), a small child who doesn’t speak, with his current wife, Beth (Jessica Henwick). Gretchen, forced to move to a Bavarian Alps resort where her architect father has a gig, is mired in her terrible teens, miserable and confused, lingering in the adolescent “who am I / what am I doing here / why is everybody and everything so messed up?” phase.
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