After premiering last year in the Roger Michell’s Blackbird starring Oscar winners Susan Sarandon and Kate Winslet alongside Sam Neill, Mia Wasikowska, and Lindsay Duncan, has arrived on VOD. The film tells the story of a family coming together to celebrate its dying matriarch Lily (Sarandon) before she ends her life. That is not a spoiler; the entire film unfolds from that premise...
Throughout most of the first half of the film, we become the witness to small private conversations with the family members. Sisters Jennifer (Winslet) and Anna (Wasikowska) argue about the presence of Anna’s partner (Bex Taylor-Klaus) at the gathering. Lily and her close friend Elizabeth (Duncan) talk about their sexual experimentation in their younger years. Anna expresses her frustration over the gift she gave her mother to her husband Michael (Rainn Wilson). Their son Jonathan (Anson Boon) admits to Lily that he wants to be an actor (and no one knows).
These pockets of dialogue show how distanced each family member is from the others. Michell and his team use strategic blocking, negative space, a clinical color palette, impressive production design, and static wide shots to highlight the isolation. Even in the group scenes, the same filmmaking techniques are employed, denoting that the same distance is consistent even in familial settings.
The first half of the film capture the familiar essence of reunion: Love clearly still connects the family but there's also a lack of immediacy or comfort. The family members think they know each other, but are always playing catching up since the time spent apart is not enough to reignite the intimacy and constant communication they shared while living together.
However, a shift happens midway into the film. During the family dinner, Lily decides to give everyone in the table something to remember her by. The shift is evident in the cinematography: shots are now mostly closeups, handheld shots are suddenly employed, and the colors get warmer. These finely calibrated visual strategies are especially worthy enough of attention. At this moment, the family members are actually together, even if politeness is suddenly off the table. That is how relationships work: being together with someone means that not every conversation will be pleasantries, but at least there will be more truth. Dialogue can be confronting, even combative at times.
What comes next is a series of unravelings that put the family in even grayer moral areas. Euthanasia is a sensitive topic, but the film handles it in a non-judgmental, matter-of-fact manner. People disagree about the decision, but the film strips off the divisiveness and focuses on the emotional impact that the death will have. Perhaps the film is guilty of not digging deep enough on the subject matter, but its focus is on the externalized manifestations of the turmoil: verbal disagreements, terful reconciliation, even an abrupt moment of lustful passion.
Whatever shortcomings the screenplay has in exploring the interpersonal dynamics, the ensemble cast makes up for it with its solid work. Susan Sarandon provides the film with its prickly but tamed core. She combines control and resignation in her final moments. Kate Winslet and Mia Wasikowska also fare well as her daughters with wildly differing attitudes to their family's ordeal. Sam Neill is quietly touching as Lily’s husband Paul, the one in charge of navigating the occasion (and the family)’s gray areas and so does Lindsay Duncan.
Blackbird may not reach the heights that it could have given the subject matter (I have not seen the Danish version so cannot offer a comparison), but it's a solid effort. You may even find yourself moved by it. B
Blackbird is now available on VOD.