Netflix continues to prove why they’re one of the best streaming services, releasing a new trailer for their twisted comedy series Welcome to the Family. It looks like a hilarious mashup of Knives Out and Weekend at Bernie’s, with all the inheritance politics of the Daniel Craig mystery smashing headfirst into the corpse chaos of the 80s comedy.
In Welcome to the Family, “A struggling single mom rallies her quirky family to outsmart a mafia boss after her estranged, wealthy father dies, leaving them with his debt.” Said debt, it turns out, is the very apartment that Cristina (Marimar Vega) and her family live in. Teaming up with his second wife Luciana (Erika Buenfil), who also stands to lose big in the deal, they formulate a plan: hide the body until the late patriarch’s will can be falsified to return ownership of everything abc to the family and outsmart an increasingly agitated mob boss. However, with a nosy neighbor poking around and a lovestruck police officer on the case, things begin to unravel as the family desperately try to keep their ruse under wraps.
Judging by the trailer, which you can watch below, the show looks to be an absolute blast for fans of crime comedy, with everything from cartoonish mafioso and over-the-top violence to absurd characters to a lawyer who makes Breaking Bad’s Saul Goodman look like a paragon of virtue. Meanwhile, the sunkissed setting and bickering family dynamic will appeal to anyone who felt that Modern Family needed more organized crime.
Titled Bienvenidos a la Familia in its native Mexico, the show is a remake of the Catalan Benvinguts a la família, which ran for two seasons in its home country before finding international acclaim when it was acquired by Netflix for global release.
Confusingly, both are now available on the streamer under the Welcome to the Family title, so be sure to check the release year. That being said, the Catalonian version is well worth a watch, receiving critical acclaim on its release in 2018 and being favorably compared to Weeds and Shameless. Critics also pointed out how its themes of eviction and displacement tie into the larger context of the Catalan independence movement and the 2017 declaration of independence from Spain. The new version looks to play things more broadly, with a high-budget sheen that differentiates it from the bleaker, darker original. That’s not to say the Spanish-language version won’t have points to make, but fans of the original would be wise to expect a more popcorn-friendly approach this time out.
Either way, I’m always here for a new black comedy, especially one from the home of After Life and Santa Clarita Diet. And with a cast that’ll be familiar to anyone up to speed with Mexican cinema and telenovelas – including Ana Layevska, Erick Elías, and Martín Altomaro – Welcome to the Family is one I’ll be checking out when it arrives new on Netflix in March.
