‘Goodbye June’ Review: Kate Winslet Makes Her Directing Debut with a Star-Driven Family Drama (Netflix)

Two accomplished actresses made their directing debuts this year, and both ended up with films that have more in common than one might expect. At the Cannes Film Festival, Scarlett Johansson premiered her first feature, Eleanor the Great, and a few months later her colleague Kate Winslet unveiled her own, Goodbye June. The similarities go beyond the fact that both titles carry the name of their central character. Each film tells the story of an elderly woman, distinctive in her own way. And while their plots and thematic concerns are quite different, both suggest a shared sensitivity toward complex family sagas, filtered through the lived experience of an older woman.

Both films also turn out to be far more conventional than one might have anticipated, and each fits neatly into a recognizable subgenre. Johansson’s film, in its own way, is a Holocaust story. Winslet’s belongs to the now strikingly popular category of the “cancer movie.” Here, the woman who is ill—already before the film even begins—is June of the title (the ever-excellent Helen Mirren), who is hospitalized shortly after the opening scene following an accident that marks another downturn in her fragile health. Her husband, Bernie (Timothy Spall), comes across as a simple man, perhaps not the sharpest, and physically frail himself. As a result, the burden of managing the situation falls on their four children, each bringing along their own unresolved issues.

Winslet herself plays Julia, the second-oldest sibling but arguably the most responsible one, at least when it comes to her parents’ finances. She has what appears to be a high-powered job, three children, and a somewhat absent husband, and she tends to assume a leadership role by default. Her relationship with Molly (Andrea Riseborough), the third sibling, is strained and openly contentious. Molly has four children—including a baby—and a well-meaning but scatterbrained husband (Stephen Merchant), and she clashes constantly with Julia, bristling at her authority. The youngest, Connor (Johnny Flynn), still lives with his parents and is the one most emotionally undone by what is happening. Finally, there is the eldest sister, Helen (Toni Collette), who lives in Germany and works as an eccentric life coach devoted to some form of alternative, holistic therapy.

It is clear from the outset that June is in her final days—she is already in a terminal stage—and has chosen to remain in the hospital, where she is cared for by a devoted nurse named Angel (Fisayo Akinade). Her family visits her constantly, and those visits become the framework through which the film gradually reveals the family’s inner workings, long-standing tensions, and buried conflicts. Set in the days leading up to Christmas, the story inevitably takes on some of the contours of a holiday film, albeit a far more painful one than most.

The film’s impressive ensemble works hard, and often succeeds, in giving life to characters that are drawn in fairly archetypal terms, with roles clearly defined: the serious sister, the frustrated one, the sensitive brother, and the “crazy” sibling. Somewhat more intriguing is the central parental couple. Spall plays a decidedly odd father—much of the time concerned only with eating, drinking, and sleeping—while Mirren, barely moving from her hospital bed, conveys a woman who seems to be quietly orchestrating events, as if everything had been carefully planned from the start. The screenplay is by Joe Anders, who happens to be Winslet’s son with her ex-husband Sam Mendes. It hardly gets more family-centered than that.

With a few exceptions, Goodbye June could easily be adapted into a stage play set almost entirely in a hospital room, revolving around a sick woman and the relatives who come to see her. The conflicts that emerge are not especially surprising, echoing situations familiar from countless similar stories. What ultimately sets Winslet’s film apart is the caliber of its cast, who manage to hold the entire dramatic structure together and, despite the film’s shortcomings, make it genuinely affecting. If it were a song, Goodbye June would be one performed by great singers working with a fairly conventional melody. They make it sound as good as possible, but there is only so much magic they can do.