Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America is a 2003 film written and directed by Douglas Buck. It is a compilation of three earlier short films created by Buck and offers a glimpse into the hidden lives of seemingly ordinary families. Each story in the trilogy has its own characters and separate narratives, but they all deal with debilitating despair and grief, and no matter what the characters do they cannot escape the misery that has claimed their lives. The segments include "Cutting Moments", which is about a wife who is desperate for love and attention, "Home", which follows the struggles of a man raised in an oppressively religious household, and "Prologue", the story of a paralyzed, amputee teenager. There is no solace in their tales, but the film leaves viewers pointedly aware of the sorrow that pervades the American family and simultaneously wondering what is going on behind their neighbor's closed doors.moreless
