#family-drama

#family-drama

No movie with Imelda Staunton and Bill Nighy can be entirely without interest and they're heading up a mighty cast here under the direction of the great Argentinian film-maker Pablo Trapero, making his English-language debut. He has co-written the screenplay with another A-lister: Canadian actor and director Sarah Polley. And yet the resulting picture, adapted from the 2013 novel by David Gilbert, feels nebulous and laborious.

Walter Salles' " I'm Still Here," which won the Best International Feature Film Oscar earlier this year, calmly but powerfully observes a real-life personal struggle under a dictatorship in Brazil during the early 1970s. While never overlooking the grim and horrific aspects of that time, the movie stays focused on small but resonant human moments, and these intimate interactions become all the more poignant to us as the story eventually arrives at its two-part epilogue.

Paper Bag Plan: Oakland native Anthony Lucero's exceptional follow-up to his indie sweetheart East Side Sushi will likewise melt hearts and sooth aching souls. Lucero's beautiful film is filled with empathy, insight and compassion as functioning alcoholic dad Oscar (Lance Kinsey, giving one of the most graceful performances of the year) seeks ways to make his quick-witted 25-year-old disabled son Billy (Cole Massie, in a phenomenal performance) more self-sufficient due to his own dire health diagnosis.

Welcome, friends, to The Girlfriend, an adaptation of the excellent psychological thriller by Michelle Frances, and an answer to the question many of us have surely pondered just how much of an incest vibe can one get away with instilling in a shiny prestige miniseries, and can anyone get Robin Wright to star and make the whole thing disturbingly credible?

Elsa works at a care facility for elderly people and lives with her mother and younger brother; they are all stuck in the kind of limbo that comes with unresolved family mysteries. One day, Elsa encounters Franck once more as a voice. It seems that an alien presence may be able to return him to his home planet, if Elsa is prepared to help them out with a little favour:

The Schwoopers are an argumentative, chaotic Jewish household, swooshing back and forward in time as they navigate romance, coming of age, marital breakdown, parenting, and purpose.

Karis Kelly's play, awarded the Women's Prize for Playwriting in 2022, masterfully captures a family’s reunion in Northern Ireland, focusing solely on the women present. The narrative navigates humor and pain through rich character dynamics and familial tensions, particularly expressed through the matriarch Eileen and her daughters Gilly and Jenny, each grappling with inherited traumas while humorously confronting their pasts.

A menopausal assassin is a compelling character, combining a woman losing oestrogen with the lethal intrigue of a gunslinger, reflecting on empowerment amidst societal constraints.

When we meet Devon, she's very unwilling to accept her sister's wants or needs or truth - which is that she wants nothing to do with their dad.

"All my books tend to do that. I've never written a straight-up mystery or a straight-up thriller ever, and they all have very strong multigenerational, multiethnic family-life drama."

"The Surfer dives deep into the challenges of an outsider trying to integrate into a tight-knit community, highlighting themes of resilience, identity, and the pursuit of dreams."

To hang onto your sanity, let go of the idea that you need to jump into action every single time someone complains or asks for help. Stop being available to your family 24/7.

New episodes of Heartland Season 18 premiere Thursday, April 17, 2025, on UP Faith & Family, with each episode dropping at 3:00 a.m. ET.