Blackbird: A great cast, and yeah, it's a tearjerker - you got a problem with that?

By Thom Ernst

Rating B-minus

Somewhere along the American East coast—I’m going to guess it’s the Hamptons—Sam Neill stands, as only he can, staring pensively at a sunrise. 

Neill is Paul, the patient husband of Lily (Susan Sarandon), a woman who lays dying. You can imagine Paul contemplating life’s fragile nature while playing witness to the effortless ritual of the days dying each night, then rising each morning. 

Susan Sarandon is a terminally ill matriarch who’s ready to go out her way, in Blackbird

Or maybe he’s thinking about the NBA Eastern Conference finals between Miami and Boston—Paul looks like he’d be a basketball fan. But before Paul filters his thoughts through the haze of an East coast morning mist, and before Lily can fully contemplate the simple beauty of her outstretched hand, we are hit by the realization that we are in the company of the white upper-middle-class. Whatever failings are ahead—regrets, resentment, euthanasia—are sure to be bathed in the comforting glow of sunrises and sunsets.  

So begins Blackbird, a feature at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, and an earnest but tempered tear-jerker about a terminally ill woman gathering her family for one last visit before she dies. To be clear, this is not a plea to ‘come now because I could go at any moment.’ Lily intends to own her mortality rather than crumble miserably away in a body that fails her. 

She is a woman familiar with having things done her way. Death is her brave final act, courageous with some grandstanding tossed in to make things uneasy. There is no turning back. Invitations sent, the guests arrived, and the party favour rests on the kitchen shelf still wrapped in the box it came in.  

There is Paul, the stoic patriarch reserving his grief for the privacy of his greenhouse, Jennifer (Kate Winslet) the well-intended but critical oldest child devoted to her mother’s wishes, and there’s Jennifer’s adoring goof-ball husband, (Rainn Wilson) a likeable lug full of cornball trivia and confused reactions. There’s also their moody teen song Johnathan (Anson Boon), Anna (Mia Wasikowska) the unreliable youngest child and self-appointed Black Sheep of the family. Chris (Bex Taylor-Klaus) is Anna’s on again, off again girlfriend and Liz (Lindsay Duncan) is a long-time family friend. 

In the center is Lily, the now saintly-in-the-face-of-death matriarch.

Roger Michell directs the drama leaning towards the style of Ingmar Bergman, but with dialogue reminiscent of Douglas Sirk.. Michell wastes no time priming up the tear-ducts for the inevitable weepy finale. 

Of course, we know how this is going to end. What we might not know is how Michell plans on getting us there.  And it seems redundant to label the film a tear-jerker then decry it for being manipulative. Yes, Blackbird is manipulative. It’s stocked with Big Chill-like moments of irreverent humour, spontaneous sing-alongs, collaborative kitchen clean-ups, and stolen moments of thoughtful reprieve. Blackbird exploits all it can, but with a cast that can pull it off.  

The actors tackle their characters with tooth and nail, clawing and biting into their roles like ravished hounds. And though the premise is solemn, the portrayals are nonetheless enjoyable. 

Sarandon and Winslet give the film its most profoundly visible performances. Sarandon’s Lily floats through every scene with pious dignity, as if Lily has already died, appearing to others as a vague ghostly presence, while Winslet’s Jennifer is a whirlwind of strong-willed good-intentions and an irrational need to stay rational at all costs. 

But it is Wasikowska as Anna who gives the most compelling performance, staggering through her noticeably out-of-step relationship with the rest of the family, harbouring a hidden resentment and warding off attacks from her over-functioning sister.  

But for some, the worst offense will be that Blackbird is an American remake of what is purported to be a better film—Bille August’s acclaimed 2014 Danish film, Silent Heart. Often the criticism is justified. But I have not seen Silent Heart, which puts me at an advantage to being open to the film’s attempts to play out its story like a melodramatic parlour game. 

It is easy to be cynical about Michell’s family drama, and in some circles, the requirement is mandatory. The film can be over-wrought, manipulative, and by some standards, unfairly stages death as a backdrop for parading a rogue-gallery of family archetypes. And though I recognize the film’s flaws, I choose to let my cynicism slide.

Blackbird. Directed by Roger Michell. Stars Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet, Sam Neill, Rainn Wilson and Mia Wasikowska. The film is released on VOD Friday, September 18.