Rating: **** ½
I came to swoon , and none too soon, over Goodbye June after hearing it being called everything from trite to a product of nepotism.
Sure, just because Kate Winslet’s son wrote the film and she directed it! So family-family , na? It’s all about the family, anyway. And what a wonderful heartwarming familial fantasia filled with feelings that penetrate the essence of family liaisons.
It all begins with the matriarch, the eponymous June, collapsing in the kitchen while her spaced out husband—he is not all there, but nonetheless all there—is unable to comprehend or handle the gravity of the situation.
Which leaves June’s son Connor to take over, as usual . That June and her husband Bernie are played by Helen Mirren and Timothy Spall, is such a stroke of luck for director Winslet and writer Joe Anders—mother and son coming together in a uniquely normal take on the wages of the umbilical cord.
Once June and her family move into the hospital space there is so much activity in that one spacious but selfcontained room, we the audience almost feel like intruders.
Winslet establishes an enrapturing intimacy in the ruptured relationship between the two sisters Julia(Kate Winslet) and Molly(Andrea Riseborough) who kiss and make up in the hospital corridor over a bar of Snickers(if that is aproduct placement it is well placed).
While the family bickers over Snickers, a quiet love story flickers between Connor and a kind-hearted male nurse Angeli(Fisayo Adinade) who is not British but knows what it means to lose somone dear.
The film speaks a universal language in a clear distinctive unpretentious tone. It is not afraid to show exaggerated emotions, even if it means being accused of flinging aside all subtlety.
Muted emotions, some other time. Goodbye June is a celebration of melodrama. It doesn’t mind showing the schmaltzy side of a grieving family; in fact it welcomes and embraces the melodrama. This is a film that opens up its heart and asks us to walk right in. There is room for everyone.
Portions of this pitch-perfect family film could have been better written. I didn’t really care for the sisters’ reunion sequence. It felt like out-takes from an Ingmar Bergman film. And the climax felt hurried, as though time was running out not only on June but the film itself.
But there is so much to hold and cherish in Goodbye June. The film has so much to give. From all the terrific moments of family kinship the one that I loved the most was between the dying mother June and the stifled son Connor.She tells him to live the life he wants to.
“Thank you for being my mom,” Connor says.
This is where I heard sobs, and they were not Connor’s only.
Frankly, I wanted to know more about Connor. His long-suffering character needs a film of its own. He does find true love at the end. But what after that?
