28/50
Legendary filmmaker Mike Leigh returns to the modern world with a fierce, compassionate, and often darkly humorous exploration of family and the uneasy bonds that bind us together. Reuniting with Leigh for the first time since the multiple Oscar-nominated Secrets and Lies, the stunning Marianne Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a fear-ridden, afflicted woman prone to furious tirades against her husband, her son, and anyone who looks like her. Meanwhile, her easygoing younger sister, played by Michele Austin (Another Year), is a single mother whose life is as different from Pansy’s as their conflicting personalities—filled with communal warmth from both her salon clients and her daughters. This sweeping film from a master actor takes us into the intricacies of kinship, duty, and that most enduring of human mysteries: that even in the midst of life’s hurts and hardships, we find ways to love those we call family.