Brief History of a Family review - glossy Chinese psychological thriller feels shallow

Brief History of a Family is a psychological thriller with a story familiar to anyone who has seen Ripley, Saltburn or Six Degrees of Separation. A clever young man with low social status infiltrates a far more privileged family, with devastating results. The difference here is that it's set not among American or European elites but in the booming economy of China with its high-tech citadels and international aspirations. 

The Tu family live in a luxurious apartment in an unnamed city; they want their only son, Wei (Muran Lin), to go to an Ivy League university but he’s more interested in gaming than studying. His mother (played by Ke-Yu Guo below) is an elegant but tender-hearted home-maker, devoted to her husband (Feng Zu) who has a high-powered job in bioinformatics. When their son, brings home a new friend from school, Shuo, (Xilun Sun), they are initially taken aback by his reticence and lack of table etiquette but soon take a compassionate interest in this clever young man when they learn that his mother has died and his father is neglectful, if not actively abusive. But is Shuo all that he seems? Or is he a cuckoo in the nest, stealthily ousting Wei?The feature debut of writer-director Lin Jianjie, who comes from a similar family background to Shuo and studied film in the US, Brief History of a Family is strikingly glossy. It will appeal to audiences who enjoy flicking through high-end international lifestyle magazines like Wallpaper and Monocle and loved the decor and fashion in films like Parasite and Past Lives, Prada, Natuzzo Italia and Timberland are brands name-checked in the credits. 

Nearly every image in the film is a thing of contrived beauty, whether the camera is focusing on the luminescent fish tank in the Tu home, or indulging in languid aerial shots of the family car driving between skyscrapers, or the young men kitting up for a fencing class. Cinematographer Jiahao Zhang’s frames the majority of his scenes obliquely – through windows and doors, mirrors and screens, Venetian blinds and reflective surfaces – all drawing attention to the direction (and misdirection) that is going on in the narrative. It’s very artfully crafted, although there’s some none too subtle imagery (associated with the father’s profession), involving cells under the microscope being infiltrated by an alien body.

There are some good performances here, particularly Ke-Yu Guo as the compassionate mother who lets herself be seduced by the attentive shape-shifter that her son has brought home. References to China’s now-abandoned one-child policy, that led to the pressure-cooker atmosphere that parents pile on their lone children, imply some criticism of the state. But the focus on cutting-edge technology and luxurious lifestyles means that the lasting impression Brief History of a Family makes is of a film made for the international art house market; it would be interesting to know how it plays in its homeland. 

• More film reviews on theartsdesk