Just watched Cinema Verité, the HBO film depicting An American Family; a PBS series that chronicles the lives of the Loud family in 1971 and airing in 1973.

It was controversial at best, and the first efforts of reality television brought to a national scale. Lance Loud, the effervescent eldest son gave way to startling exposure of homosexuality, tipping the hat without actually declaring so. An unchartered feat at the time.

You witness a seemingly happy family crumble beneath their feet. Infidelities, insecurities and unabashed exposure. It was a slow-paced homage to an archived familial creation that piques interest over the original footage.

Diane Lane and James Gandolfini were superb, but Thomas Dekker really stole the show as Lance.

The lacing of Mama Cass Elliot’s rendition of “Dream a Little Dream of Me” was well played and beautifully selected to highlight such melancholic revelations.