Atom Egoyan′s second feature, the dark and disturbing-but persistently witty-Family Viewing, resumed the concerns established with Next of Kin(1984): his fascinations with video, ethnicity and family dysfunction. The story centers on Van, a well-kept but malcontented youth, who lives with his father and stepmother in a comfortable but sterile apartment. Increasingly alienated, Van is drawn to his maternal grandmother who is ill and living in a nursing home. Disturbed by the undue sexual interest his stepmother takes in him, Van′s rupture with his father becomes complete when he discovers that his father is recording homemade sex tapes over the videos of his childhood-the happy times when he was together with his grandmother and his parents. With the daughter of one of the nursing home residents, Van schemes to get his grandma out of the home and into his care, away from his father. Family Viewing is a key example of Egoyan′s early work: the depiction of a chilly, hermetic world in which intense emotions are bottled up and human interaction is mediated by images.