A terminally ill mother arranges to bring her family together one last time
before she dies.
Review by
Musanna Ahmed
Directed by: Roger Michell
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Sam Neill, Susan Sarandon, Kate
Winslet, Rainn Wilson, Lindsay Duncan, Bex Taylor-Klaus
I haven't seen the Danish film Silent Heart but I can't
imagine that a European drama about euthanasia is easily palatable to
non-festival audiences. Starring a gallery of commercially viable talent,
Roger Michell's American remake Blackbird has me
curious to seek out the source material. Common wisdom is that the original
is always better, but this is a pretty good film on independent terms, and
certainly one that easily appeals to a mass audience.
The terminally ill Lily (Susan Sarandon) has made peace with her circumstance. She's gonna die soon but wants to go out on her own terms. Before her assisted suicide, she invites her family to gather, which includes husband Paul (Sam Neill), daughter Jennifer (Kate Winslet), Jennifer's husband Michael (Rainn Wilson), their son Jonathan (Anson Boon), their daughter Anna (Mia Wasikowska), Anna's girlfriend Chris (Bex Taylor-Klaus) and one non-family member, Lilly's old best friend Liz (Lindsay Duncan). Common wisdom is that no congregation can occur without drama.
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And there may be one revelation too many in this story. Beginning with the
antagonistic attitude of Anna, who feels like she has no idea who her
grandmother really is, the domesticity is consistently interrupted until it
begins to resemble a sickly soap opera. A narrative development straight out
of Breaking the Waves is the final play before Michell wraps
things up, but thankfully the emotional core is still intact for a touching
finale, surviving the pretzel-like shape of the difficult family
dynamics.
It manages to work because of Michell’s clean formal approach. Most of the film is shot by Mike Eley from the same wide medium angle from which we view the films of Ruben Östlund. Framing multiple actors at the same time, there's little chaos in each shot, allowing us to focus on the most important actions and reactions against the warm glow of the sleek house they inhabit. Furthermore, capturing his actors at a literal arm's length gives Michell less room for the sort of melodrama that can creep in through a close-up, and the cool temperature is assisted by the spare use of music. I appreciate the director not forcing his hand in trying to sentimentalise his film. However, I do wonder if this pragmatic approach to a tear-jerker is directly lifted from Bille August's original film.
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As usual, Sarandon is sublime and earns pathos through her perfectly stated
performance as the acerbic, ailing matriarch. Winslet is naturally great as
the mother who’s out of touch with her millennial children, and Wasikowska
comfortably replays the sort of acerbic youth she was in
The Kids Are All Right. The distinction between the three generations of these characters forms a
painfully relatable message about how we don’t really speak to our elders as
we should, as well as highlighting the disconnect between modern and
traditional attitudes. But, to wrap up the notes on casting - for a film
with humour in abundance, Rainn Wilson is curiously wasted.
Overall, Blackbird is a pretty good weepy, succeeding on the strengths of its cast and crystalline visuals.
Blackbird is on Amazon Prime Video
UK now.