The Family: The Tenenbaums

The Issues: Ah, child prodigies - it never seems to end well, does it? Especially not with three absurdly gifted children and a noncommittal, largely absent father figure crammed under the same roof.

And even less so when the mother is also knocking boots with a drug-addled neighbour, one of the sons openly yearns for his adopted sister, and the father is feigning terminal cancer in a desperate bid to get back in everyone’s good books. Superbly messy, even by Anderson’s sky-scraping standards.

Would Therapy Help? Tricky to see how one therapist could be expected to tackle this family’s bulging litany of botherations in a single working lifetime, but a large, dedicated team of relationship counsellors working in shifts around the clock might eventually make a few inroads.

We especially like to imagine the Tenenbaums hooked up to the electrodes from Dr Monroe’s Family Therapy Center in early Simpsons episode 'There's No Disgrace Like Home'.