While you may not know it by looking at her, but Lily (Susan Sarandon) is about to die. Afflicted with a rare, deadly disease that gradually causes her muscles to deteriorate, her prospects for leading a normal life grow increasingly sparse as the days progress. If she can’t live as herself, dying on her own terms is an ideal option. She decides that the only way forward is to end her life, which she is going to do with the assistance of her loving husband, Paul (Sam Neill), a doctor who helps plan Lily’s final days. To say goodbye to her loved ones, Lily invites her family to stay with them for the weekend, after which they will bid their farewells and Lily will end her life in a quick, painless manner. Amongst the visitors to their luxurious seaside home are Jenny (Kate Winslet) and Anna (Mia Wasikowska), the couple’s adult daughters, who come with their own families – in the case of Jenny, it’s Michael (Rainn Wilson), her goofy, socially-awkward husband and Jonathan (Anson Boon), their quiet, reserved son. Anna brings along Chris (Bex Taylor-Klaus), her on-again-off-again girlfriend, whom she secretly only dates as a means to rebel against her family. Also present is Lily’s longtime best friend, Elizabeth (Lindsay Duncan), who we gradually discover has a much deeper history with the family than they imagined. Over the course of a few days, the family does their best to enjoy themselves – Lily makes it very clear that this is not supposed to be a miserable affair, but rather one final opportunity for them to bond as a family, giving her the chance to say goodbye on her own terms, and give everyone around her positive memories to cherish, rather than forcing them to see her as a weak, dependent invalid, trapped in her own body. Yet, the festivities fade and the tensions heighten, with difficult talking points finding their way into the discussion, and admissions of misconduct and inner turmoil gradually taking over what is already a highly emotional weekend, and threaten to derail the lives of these individuals who are struggling not only with the imminent loss of a loved one, but also their own personal challenges.

I admire Blackbird more than I enjoyed it, which is an odd sentiment, but one that makes sense in the context of the film. In his remake of an underseen Danish film, Roger Michell (one of contemporary cinema’s more unheralded directors, having directed a wealth of memorable films, but rarely receiving the recognition he deserves as a solid, reliable filmmaker), once again shows himself capable of putting together a film that occurs at the perfect intersection between comedy and drama, inciting a range of emotions that tends to grab our attention, putting us through the wringer in unexpectedly moving ways. It’s foolish to deny that this is quite a manipulative film – from the first downbeat moment, we know that we’re venturing into a very bleak and heartbreaking film, and Michell is well aware of what he is doing here. Yet, he’s shown himself as willing to have difficult conversations, and very few recent films have been able to touch on the fragility of the ambiguous period between life and death quite as well as Blackbird. The concept of a bardo – the transitional state between the two states of being – are embodied relatively well here and comes about through a series of character-driven journeys, and while it may not be the rousing, dramatic masterwork it appears to be aiming to become, the film does manage the impossible, finding the humanity in a storyline that could be seen as either dreadfully overwrought for those cynical to this method of filmmaking, or hopelessly distressing for those of us who are more sensitive to such stories. Daring without being all that provocative (which would normally be a flaw, but works very well in the context of this film), Blackbird is a slow-burning family drama that traverses some very painful narrative territory and emerges relatively successfully as a decent glimpse into the human condition from one of its more reliable observers.

One area in which Michell perpetually succeeds is in extracting memorable performances from his cast. He may be only a few steps ahead of the dreadful title of “director-for-hire” (especially since his consistency in bringing certain stories to the screen in very simple, unassuming ways has made him someone who is frequently recruited to shepherd more script-driven films), but he has managed to work with an impressive bevy of actors over his long and storied career. Blackbird isn’t much of an exception, and while the performers assembled here may appear odd at a glance, since they’re plucked from very different communities of the profession, they may sense when we realise how strong their performances are, both in isolation and together. Susan Sarandon is magnetic here – Blackbird may not be a particularly great film, but this is undeniably one of her strong performances. Playing the feisty matriarch who commissions a weekend of family-filled joy, which is to culminate with her suicide, Sarandon has a lot to work with – and her naturally rambunctious spirit gives Lily so much more depth. Sarandon has always been a wild spirit when it comes to acting, and despite its flaws, Blackbird is a film that manages to actually capitalise on the actress’s very peculiar talents that have made her such a dynamic figure in film over the past few decades. She’s giving perhaps the only perfect performance in the film, since the rest of the cast does seem to falter in comparison – on one side, there’s Kate Winslet at her most stilted and mannered, and Mia Wasikowska seemingly lost in the wrong film, while on the other, Sam Neill and Lindsay Duncan are woefully underwritten, an unfortunate occurrence, considering how strong their characters are, and their well-documented willingness to play some harrowing parts. It takes time for some of these characters to hit the right emotional beats, but when it does become clear that they’re more than thinly-veiled archetypes, there are some moments of revelatory brilliance embedded in it, albeit being quite difficult to see at first.

No one in Blackbird is necessarily bad, but rather struggles to make an impression on their own. Yet, when taken together and perceived as an ensemble, we can start to see some kind of cohesion between the cast and the story they’re given to interpret. Essentially, this is a story of two broad ideas – family and death, and it delivers on both to an extent. It presents a very compelling perspective on a family that may not be dysfunctional in the traditional sense, but is all carrying their emotional baggage that adds up to a series of explosive confrontations, punctuated by moments of tenderness that break the monotonous tension that defines the film. This isn’t to suggest that Blackbird isn’t shallow – in many ways, it struggles to show nearly the amount of depth needed for a film like this – but rather that its prosaic approach to the material serves some purpose, even if its only ankle-high profundity that seems like something we should be genuinely invested in, but fail to engage with outside of a few poignant moments. Death isn’t an easy topic to discuss, despite being one of art’s most explored subjects – and Blackbird does give some strong insights into the inevitability of dying, addressing it directly and through very direct means. This is a straightforward, bare drama, and thus there is nowhere for the thematic material to hide – every emotion we see occurs in real time, and while it does cover a weekend in the lives of these characters in only ninety minutes, we don’t feel like there has been a lack of resolution. To its credit, Blackbird manages to explore the lives of the major characters and conclude their stories without leaving too much unresolved, which is very tricky for ensemble-based films such as this. It all comes down to the very particular execution, since the premise is certainly aligned with a tried and tested formula of deriving strong emotions from a resonant story, and through its unfurnished and often very bleak perspective, the film gets its message across without too much difficulty, even if it can be intentionally unpleasant at times.

Sifting through the heavy-handed emotions in Blackbird can be a bit of a challenge, and presents us with a story that maybe didn’t warrant a film that borders on being utterly miserable at times. It appears as if this film was trying to take the bold step of being a comedy about death, when in actuality, it comes across as an overwrought drama that has some moments of levity that do help in softening the perpetual blow of the tension, but not to the point where it adds up to much. Ultimately, this wasn’t a particularly necessary remake, but the reasons for interpreting this story again are clear – family is a universal concept, and this premise presents the audience with a perspective on the experience of losing someone. It valiantly decides to be frank about these matters, which could be seen as the defining factor behind it (and the reason why it succeeds), or the film’s biggest shortcoming, since it can sometimes come across as needlessly callous, especially since the film is populated by characters who should be authentic but still vaguely likeable, rather than so weighed down by their flaws that they come to be seen as vaguely despicable. It’s a very effective film, especially in the final few moments, where the array of wild ideas converge into a single sequence of heartwrenching anguish, and while its imperfections prevent it from being entirely flawless, it’s honesty and willingness to traverse challenging territory is enough to make this a worthwhile endeavour, and a film that may be excruciating and unpleasant, but still fully capable of touching on some potent issues and leaving an impression, even if a more assured and artistically-resonant approach may have benefitted this far better.