Chicken Coop (2024) viscerally sees the family drama-mother genre focused on fostering family, reconciliation and shift houses. Directed by Joseph DeGolyer, the film is set in the idyllic rural setting with snow drifts of Christmas season, where estrangements, dormant feelings and unsaid disappointment comes to rest.
The Story
Isaac (Noah Kershisnik) is not the kind of person who connects with others. He is a successful lawyer who is happily married but the family plans to go on a trip to a neglected childhood home called The Chicken Coop with an emotionally broken father, Abe Mark Bracich, who has been separate from his family. This makes him feel tortured. From there on Isaac starts dealing with trauma that seems connected to his past as he mentors his son and wife, Monika Moore Smith.
Intersecting neighbors then have an ugly reality to fathom as they have a disturbing blood rich among familial trench swords that affect better. Also, years of disgusted homes are constructed with silent compassion buried deep within. After all, Tania, wife and mother doesn’t think of leaving “the lost over the years love” all behind. Together they stand tearing and laughing constantly which is the beauty of a disturbed family that couldn’t physically stay built over the year, strangling throat and sticking together at gulches to construct invincible bonds.
The Cast
- Noah Kershisnik as Isaac: A man torn between duty and resentment, whose journey toward forgiveness is both painful and uplifting.
- Monica Moore Smith as Tania: Isaac’s wife, whose compassionate spirit is the glue holding the family together.
- Mark Bracich as Abe: A gruff but deeply vulnerable father longing for redemption.
- Supporting performances include Eliza Galvin as Isaac’s mother in flashbacks, and Landon Hix as a quirky handyman who adds levity to the heavy family drama.
Why It Matters
“Chicken Coop” delves into the universal concepts of family, reconciliation, and the delicateness of love. The scenery gives insight into the countryside winters and adds to the fact that the story told is an individual one, yet one that so many can relate to. It becomes a metaphor for the family as well, a home which is indeed dysfunctional, but through hard work and love can be fixed.
