Werner Herzog’s Family Romance, LLC is a Herzog film through and through, complete with the auteur’s obsessions about the blurred lines between performance and reality, as well as his penchant for narrative digressions and his delight in the imperfections that arise in the filmmaking process. Made on a tiny budget, the film’s handmade aesthetic and use of non traditional actors (mostly playing themselves and recreating and improvising situations similar to ones they’ve encountered) creates an eerie space where fiction and reality blur, placing us within the uncanny valley – where the approximation of real life is off just enough to keep us off balance and unsettled for the duration of the film. It’s a space where Herzog thrives. And he’s found the perfect collaborators in this film that asks us to question what it means to truly connect with another human being in an age where we’re so disconnected. As postmodern and intellectual as it is, Herzog and his cast never lose sight of the humanity at the center of these questions. It’s an approach that makes the film deeply moving and a work of incredible beauty.