Movie Review – Goodbye June
Principal Cast : Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren, Andrea Riseborough, Toni Collette, Johnny Flynn, Timothy Spall, Fisayo Akinade, Stephen Merchant.
Synopsis: Follows a group of fractured siblings who must come together under sudden and trying circumstances.
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Kate Winslet and Helen Mirren headline this tear-jerker drama about a fractured family forced back together when their mother (Mirren) collapses and is not expected to last much longer. Ostensibly a layered journey through grief, resolution and, ultimately, love, Goodbye June marks the directorial debut of Winslet, and a very solid one at that. Working from a script by her son Joe Anders, Winslet’s efforts both behind and in front of the camera feel deeply personal, and she has clearly attracted top-tier talent to the project, drawn to what would have been pitched as a realistic and very raw work of narrative fiction.
Mirren largely gets to lie about in a bed, Timothy Spall does what Timothy Spall does best with the disaffected, hang-dog demeanour he’s carved a career out of refining, and Toni Collette plays heavily to type as a bohemian, crystals-and-potions spiritualist daughter within a family riddled with bitterness, jealousy, anger and resentment. Unpacking this web of unresolved drama is Winslet’s chief mission, and while Goodbye June isn’t “my” kind of movie, it’s a very, very good example of the genre.
Ensemble pieces such as this live or die by two crucial elements: the quality of the writing and the honesty of the performances. Goodbye June delivers superbly on both counts. Anders’ script is raw, sincere and steeped in human failing, while the performances across the board – including the child actors, surprisingly enough – are excellent, and at times sublime. Mirren doesn’t need to do much beyond anchoring the film as the emotional gravity well around which everything pivots, but Winslet, Andrea Riseborough, Collette and Johnny Flynn all deliver exquisite, often excruciating turns as siblings coming to terms with the fact that their mother is dying from an incurable illness.
It’s heartbreaking stuff – definitely feel-bad cinema in every sense – and films like this are designed to send audiences away with pockets full of wet tissues. Winslet almost never puts a foot wrong. My only real criticism comes down to a creative choice I’ve long struggled with: showing characters working through major conflicts without letting the audience hear the dialogue. At a crucial moment between two male characters, Winslet elects to mute their exchange and instead play the reconciliation out via montage and musical score, withholding the emotional grist that might otherwise provide catharsis. It feels like a shorthand way of saying we couldn’t quite make this work in the script, so let’s cut fifteen minutes of exposition and have them hug at the end instead. For a film so steeped in grief and emotional trauma, it’s a nearly unforgivable misstep.
Despite that nit-pick, Goodbye June remains a moving, powerful exploration of familial grief and the unavoidable sadness that accompanies human mortality. Winslet’s directorial debut is a genuine success, and if this is the direction she intends to pursue behind the camera rather than in front of it, it bodes extremely well indeed.
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