''Family Business'' is a French

streaming television Streaming television is the digital distribution of television content, such as TV shows, as streaming media delivered over the Internet. Streaming television stands in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by over-the-air aer ...

series created and directed by Igor Gotesman. The plot revolves around a failed entrepreneur, Joseph ( Jonathan Cohen), who finds out that cannabis is about to be legalized in France. He consequently decides to change the family

kosher (also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...

butcher shop into the first marijuana coffeeshop in France. The show was ordered direct-to-series, and the first season premiered on

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

on 28 June 2019. It was quickly renewed for a second season in July 2019 and released on 11 September 2020. Netflix renewed the series for a third and final season, which was released on 8 October 2021.

Plot

Joseph wants to break out of his family's

butcher shop by starting a successful business, but has had little success. At a party, he and his best friend, Olivier, overhear an old and annoying friend, Clém, announce that France will soon legalise marijuana. Knowing Clém has a soft spot for Olivier, the two help her home while drunk and ask her for more information. Joseph decides to turn the butcher shop into a marijuana café and drives to the Netherlands to see how things operate there. His father, Gérard, is in the back of the van and they get high together, with Gérard indulging too much. However, Gérard does not want to change the family business. Joseph's sister, Aure, grandmother Ludmila, Olivier, and their friend Ali have to collect the men from the Netherlands. Ludmila has an old friend who is a grower in the Netherlands and buys some crops with her savings. Joseph, Aure, and friends come up with a plan to have Gérard's favourite musician,

Enrico Macias Gaston Ghrenassia (born 11 December 1938), known by his stage name Enrico Macias, is an Algerian-French singer, songwriter and musician of Algerian Jewish descent. Early years Gaston Ghrenassia was born to a Sephardic Algerian Jewish family i ...

, convince Gérard to agree to the plan. Enrico likes Joseph and Olivier's musical improvisations and agrees to help if they write an album with him. Meanwhile, Joseph has been paying little attention to his girlfriend, Ali's sister, Aïda. With Gérard on board, the Hazan family looks to raise money to pay off Clém so that she will have her minister father process their marijuana café application first. Joseph approaches Youssef, Ali and Aïda's ex-convict older brother. The family owns an old farm in the countryside, and they move their crops to a barn there, disguising the operation as a meat processing plant. Shortly after their arrival, the police announce that they are using nearby fields for training. One officer, Élodie, becomes romantically interested in Aure, who starts dating her without telling the rest of the family. A drug lord, Jaures, has claimed France as her turf, and comes to threaten the family, kidnapping Olivier. They agree to give her some of their product in exchange for his release. Their business becomes successful due to Ludmila's cultivation skills. Joseph names the

strain Strain may refer to: Science and technology * Strain (biology), variants of plants, viruses or bacteria; or an inbred animal used for experimental purposes * Strain (chemistry), a chemical stress of a molecule * Strain (injury), an injury to a mu ...

"Pastraweed". Jaures later returns, kidnapping Joseph's children and telling them they need to quit growing; the family convinces her to let them continue if they grow for her. Gérard starts dating a woman named Catherine. Ludmila suffers a stroke, and Aure impersonates her grandmother to conceal her absence. Élodie notices and demands Aure tell her what is happening. The family accidentally kill Jaures in self defence, turning her body into sausages to hide it. Their grow operation finally busted, the men of the family get sent to prison. Aïda, a lawyer, begins to investigate. Other prisoners respect the creators of Pastraweed but also want drug-related favours in exchange for protection, including a business meeting with their dead boss, Jaures. The family convince Catherine to pretend to be Jaures, which she does very convincingly. Just as they are about to be released, the men are broken out of prison and, with Aure and Ludmila, who have been kidnapped off the street, flown to a monastery in a foreign country. Ali works with his siblings, Clém, and Enrico to track down the family from Paris. Catherine turns out to be a rival drug lord and poses as another hostage in order to obtain information from the Hazans. Ludmila has recovered and is taken away to grow Pastraweed for the

cartel A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. Cartels are usually associations in the same sphere of business, and thus an alliance of rivals. Mos ...

. To stop their captors from killing them, Joseph and Olivier convince them they have also been developing

magic mushrooms Psilocybin mushrooms, commonly known as magic mushrooms, are a polyphyletic informal group of fungi that contain psilocybin which turns into psilocin upon ingestion. Biological genera containing psilocybin mushrooms include ''Psilocybe'', ''Pa ...

, which they found growing around the mouldy plumbing. High on hallucinogens, the boys accidentally escape their prison, but the local corrupt police eventually return them to the monastery. Catherine has really fallen for Gérard and decides to help them escape, having put her son in charge while she plays victim. Aïda gets the French police to organise a rescue mission, knowing Catherine's affiliations and working out where they are being held.

Cast and characters

* Jonathan Cohen as Joseph Hazan, a young man who desperately wants to escape working at his father's butcher shop *

Gérard Darmon Gérard Darmon (born 29 February 1948) is a French- Moroccan actor and singer. Personal life He was the second husband of actress Mathilda May (mother of his two youngest children). He has three children: Virginie (born 1968) and, by May, daugh ...

as Gérard Hazan, Joseph's father, owner of a

butcher shop *

Julia Piaton Julia Piaton (born 29 January 1985) is a French actress. She is mainly known for playing the role of Odile in ''Serial (Bad) Weddings'' and Aure Hazan in ''Family Business A family business is a commercial organization in which decision-making ...

as Aure Hazan, Joseph's sister * Ali Marhyar as Ali Benkikir, Joseph's best friend * Olivier Rosemberg as Olivier Pariente, an orphan raised by the Hazans. *

Liliane Rovère Liliane Rovère (born 30 January 1933) is a French actress. Personal life In 1955, she went to the United States where she met Chet Baker. They lived together for two years. She was married to ''Bibi Rovère''. In 1971, they adopted a girl tha ...

as Ludmila Rozenberg, Gérard's mother-in-law, Joseph and Aure's grandmother *

Louise Coldefy Louise Coldefy (born 16 May 1987 in Paris) is a French actress. Biography Coldefy attended primary school in Suresnes, a suburb of Paris. She was enthusiastic about acting from a young age and took part in minor theater performances, among othe ...

as Clémentine Cendron, an acquaintance of Joseph and Olivier *

Lina El Arabi Lina El Arabi (born 11 August 1995) is a French actress of Moroccan heritage. Biography El Arabi was born in Choisy-le-Roi, France, in 1995. At age six, she began playing violin at the Choisy-le-Roi conservatory, and at ten, she got involved i ...

as Aïda Benkikir, Ali's sister, Joseph's girlfriend, and Aure's best friend * Tamar Baruch as Jaures, a drug boss *

as Himself * Ariane Mourier as Élodie, a

gendarme Wrong info! --> A gendarmerie () is a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to "Man-at-arms, men-at-arms" ...

* Oussama Kheddam as Youssef Benkikir, Ali and Aïda's brother *

Alexandra Vandernoot Alexandra Vandernoot (born 19 September 1965) is a Belgian actress. Career While having starred in a number of French films, she is known internationally as Tessa Noël, Duncan MacLeod's girlfriend, in the fantasy television series '' Highlande ...

as Catherine

Episodes

Season 1 (2019)

Season 2 (2020)

Season 3 (2021)

Reception

Cnaan Lipshiz in ''

The Times of Israel ''The Times of Israel'' is an Israeli multi-language online newspaper that was launched in 2012. It was co-founded by Israeli journalist David Horovitz, who is also the founding editor, and American billionaire investor Seth Klarman.

'' and for the

Jewish Telegraphic Agency The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) is an international news agency and wire service, founded in 1917, serving Jewish community newspapers and media around the world as well as non-Jewish press, with about 70 syndication clients listed on its web ...

wrote an overall positive review of the series and the way it explores French Jewish life, finding its comedy and premise similar to that of ''

Breaking Bad ''Breaking Bad'' is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. Set and filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the series follows Walter White (Bryan Cranston), an underpaid, overqualified, and dispirited hig ...

''. However, he felt the realist touches of the show were undermined by neglecting to explore relevant

antisemitism in France Antisemitism in France is the expression through words or actions of an ideology of hatred of Jews on French soil. Jews were present in Roman Gaul, but information is sketchy before the fourth century. As the Roman Empire became Christianiz ...

as well as showing an uncommon friendship between the middle-class Jewish Hazan family and the working-class Muslim Benkakir family.

References

External links

* * * {{Netflix original current series French-language Netflix original programming Television series about Jews and Judaism Television shows set in France Television shows set in Paris 2010s French comedy television series 2020s French comedy television series