The best Christmas movies have a bittersweet tinge, but in Kate Winslet’s directorial debut, the sadness is front and centre. There’s more of the grave than of gravy about this story of a family saying goodbye to their ailing matriarch, but also a strange sense of hope in the efforts of all involved to make their mother’s last days as comfortable as possible.

Helen Mirren is the titular June, a woman who’s approaching her death with remarkable stoicism but no false saintliness. She wants to leave her family in a better place, though she’d rather not leave them at all. Her husband Bernie (Timothy Spall) is doing his level best to avoid the whole question, while her son Connor (Johnny Flynn) is so emotionally raw already that he’s like an open wound. But it’s her daughters who are June’s

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