Goodbye June, 2025.
Directed by Kate Winslet.
Starring Kate Winslet, Toni Collette, Johnny Flynn, Andrea Riseborough, Timothy Spall, Helen Mirren, Stephen Merchant, Fisayo Akinade, Jeremy Swift, and Raza Jaffrey.
SYNOPSIS:
Four siblings’ lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.
Making her directorial debut, Kate Winslet’s Goodbye June is such a familiar story, where, not even two years ago, Netflix already released a superior and more emotionally raw version, with the only discernible difference here that it is set around Christmas time, presumably so the algorithm has some holiday drama to shove in the face of subscribers.
The film referred to is Azazel Jacobs’ His Three Daughters, a single-setting, stage-play-reminiscent experience that saw the titular characters attempting to set aside their various issues with one another to guide their father from hospice to a peaceful death. Here, Kate Winslet (with a screenplay from Joe Anders, an up-and-coming actor who has previously performed alongside the star, writing his first script) has added a male sibling and swapped the father for a mother. Despite some solid performances all around from an ensemble that might alone still make the film worth watching, this is far less interesting and dramatically engaging. There is an amateurish feel throughout the screenplay as we watch these siblings argue and cope in different ways.
Helen Mirren’s titular June has cancer, and the treatment has stopped working. As a matter of fact, there is a chance that she would have lived slightly longer if part of her treatment had been done differently, as now, doctors fear she would not survive the surgery to remove the blockage near her stomach. The rest of the family is determined to take her home and celebrate one last Christmas, except June has already discussed alternative measures with her medical team behind their backs, choosing to stay hospitalized in this scenario and to pass on to the next life gracefully.
There is one problem with that plan: sisters Julia (Kate Winslet) and Molly (Andrea Riseborough) can’t stand one another for clichéd reasons that will inevitably come to light over time. Meanwhile, their sister Helen (Toni Collette), a spinster living across the country that no one talks to anymore, returns home for the occasion while also coming across as if her quirkiness stumbled in from another movie entirely. Then there is Connor (Johnny Flynn), who lives with June and her husband Bernie (Timothy Spall), looking after them in case the situation goes south. As one can probably already gather, that happens in the opening scene.
The bottom line is that these aren’t interesting characters, and since it’s also such a crowded family, it’s a stretch to say they are done justice as fleshed-out, real human beings. If there is an exception, it is Bernie, who often finds himself acting a fool in the hospital, riding around in a generic manual wheelchair as if he is visiting a toy store and there for fun. When he is at the hospital, he is usually asleep. When he isn’t, he is typically out drinking. To some, this behavior comes across as erratic, immature, and selfish, but in reality, he is struggling to process and accept that June is going to die before Christmas.
The only other mildly intriguing dynamic is that, whereas Julia and Molly already have several children that June has gotten to be a grandma to, the pregnant Helen will never get to share that type of bond with her mother and child. However, like most supporting plot threads here, it is casually introduced and left to the actors to make something of it before the narrative moves on to something else.
Generally, I make it a point to avoid reviewing any Christmas movie Netflix is releasing; the chances of them being solid are slim to none. They tricked me here with star power, and I ignored the synopsis. However, it is downright disappointing that an exceptional talent like Kate Winslet can’t do much with this story. Everyone in front of the camera gives worthwhile performances, but Goodbye June is undone by being overly sappy and weepy, set around Christmas to be more cloying. There is nothing to actively hate here, but one wants to say goodbye to all these characters about halfway through without caring if they reconcile their differences or not.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder
