"Kate Winslet's feature directing debut is a family movie, scripted by her son Joe Anders; it's a well-intentioned and starrily cast yuletide heartwarmer, like a two-hour John Lewis Christmas TV ad without the logo at the end. There are one or two nice lines and sharp moments but they are submerged in a treacly soup of sentimentality; in the end, I couldn't get past the cartoony quasi-Richard Curtis characterisation and the weird not-quite-earthlingness of the people involved."
"Helen Mirren is the June of the title, an affectionate but sharp-tongued matriarch who is diagnosed with terminal cancer in the run-up to Christmas, and her entire quarrelling clan will have to assemble in her hospital room. June, with a kind of benign cunning, realises that she can use her last days as a cathartic crisis that will cure her adult children's unspoken hurt."
Kate Winslet directed and co-stars in her feature debut, written by her son Joe Anders, as a star-studded yuletide family drama. The plot centers on June, a sharp-tongued matriarch (Helen Mirren) diagnosed with terminal cancer who assembles her quarrelling adult children in her hospital room to use her final days as a cathartic crisis. The ensemble includes Winslet, Andrea Riseborough, Toni Collette, Johnny Flynn, Timothy Spall, Stephen Merchant and Fisayo Akinade. Performances are strong, with Winslet restrained and controlled. The film's sentimentality and cartoonish characterisations undermine otherwise sharp moments and well-managed setpieces.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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