The New Relative review: A messy, lovely 1930s comedy

If you have eighty minutes to spare and want to feel like you are sitting in a dusty Budapest cinema in 1934, The New Relative is actually a pretty sweet time. It is perfect for anyone who loves old-school charm, but if you hate reading fast subtitles or old black-and-white films where everyone talks at once, you will probably want to skip this one. 🍿

The setup is simple enough. An American orphan girl shows up in Hungary to live with her aristocratic relatives, and instantly throws their stuffy world into a spin.

It reminds me a bit of the orphan-out-of-water vibes in Captain January, but with way more wine and late-night cabaret singers. The nobility here are mostly broke, though they try very hard to pretend they aren't.

There is this one uncle character—played by the legendary Gyula Kabos—who is constantly sweating and looking like he is about to be arrested. He has this amazing bit where he tries to explain a financial disaster while eating a piece of cake, and he keeps dropping his fork. It is incredibly funny in a totally silent-comedy sort of way, even though this is a talkie. 😂

The movie shifts between two very different worlds. One minute you are looking at these gorgeous, sunny shots of the Hungarian countryside with horses and haystacks.

The next minute, everyone is crammed into a smoky cabaret, drinking champagne and listening to a lady sing about heartbreak. It feels a bit disjointed, honestly.

It is like the director wanted to make two different movies and just glued them together in the middle. I did not mind too much, but it does make the middle section drag a bit.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The New Relative (1934) through its definitive frames.

The romance part is... fine, I guess. The young couple has decent chemistry, but they do that classic 1930s thing where they fall in love after having exactly one conversation.

If you have seen The Demi-Bride, you already know the drill. It is all about silly misunderstandings that could be solved in two seconds if anyone just stopped talking for a moment.

But nobody stops talking. The dialogue is incredibly fast, almost like a machine gun.

There is a scene near the end where five different people are arguing in a hallway, and the camera just sits there, unable to keep up. One actor in the background is clearly waiting for his cue and just staring at the ceiling for a few seconds. I love little mistakes like that. It makes the whole thing feel alive.

The main girl, played by Zita Perczel, has this wild energy that feels very modern. She does not just sit there looking pretty; she bounces around the rooms and makes funny faces.

At one point she wears this ridiculous hat that looks like a folded napkin. Nobody in the film mentions the hat, which makes it even better.

The copy of the film I watched was pretty scratchy, and the sound design is basically nonexistent. Sometimes the music just cuts off mid-bar when they transition to a new scene.

Still, there is a warmth to it that modern comedies rarely match. It is just people being silly in beautiful places, and sometimes that is enough.