During the next two afternoons at SIFF, two family dramas deemed “DON’T MISS” by the Stranger: Momma’s Man [siff] and the Secret of the Grain [siff]. I wouldn’t go that far with either of them, but I will say this: the latter has a running time that approaches three hours, the former just feels that way.

I found Momma’s Man utterly excruciating, to the point of wanting to flee just fifteen minutes into it. I suppose this was the point, and is in and of itself an achievement. By the end, I loathed the squinty-eyed moon-faced avoidant son who finds himself unable to leave the near-uninhabitable cluttered artist apartment of his passive enabler mother. Only the weary father (the director’s actual father, also a real-life experimental filmmaker) escapes with a shred of relatability.

The Secret of the Grain starts slow, and stays that way. During the middle hour I found myself falling into its slow generous cadences, getting an incomplete sense of the dynamics of the sprawling French immigrant family structure. I suspect that I would have been able to better tolerate the drawn-out and frustrating ending if someone had been considerate enough to order enough couscous for the entire theater. Seeing the film during the dinner hour, being tempted by the last section’s lead-up to a massive dinner, and finding even poor-substitute Mediterranean Express closed made the whole thing all the more difficult to bear. But it does have me on the lookout for a good place to find a delicious dish of couscous. Suggestions?

Momma’s Man screens at 4:30 pm today at the Uptown; the Secret of the Grain has a second screening tomorrow at 3:30 pm at the Egyptian