Family can be a challenging topic to address artistically, since it is a near-universal subject that most of us can relate to in some way, but it often tends to be quite specific, and what is motivating for one viewer can be entirely dull for another. However, these stories must be told, since there is always something to be said about family dynamics, which has led to it becoming one of the most widely-explored subjects in all of cinema, and despite often touching on similar subjects, there are some magnificent works of art that exist on the matter. Unfortunately, we can’t consider Jimpa to be one of them, with Sophie Hyde’s semi-autobiographical account of her time spent with her father in the weeks before his death being one of the more heavy-handed examinations of the relationship between parents and their children. The film follows Hannah, a filmmaker from Australia, as she and her husband travel to Amsterdam with their non-binary teenager Frances, where they will be visiting Sophie’s father, Jim, who is known to as “Jimpa” to his doting “grandthing”, and who is immediately smitten with their grandfather’s rebellious existence, the libertine life filled with carnal and intellectual pleasures that Frances could only dream of having puncture their humdrum existence. Over the course of a few weeks, the pair bond deeply, Frances seeing that there is a possibility to live a life where they are open and free, rather than having to hide their desires, something Jimpa tries to show them is entirely possible once someone can embrace the outside world. Based on the director’s own relationship with her father, being very closely related to the experiences she and her family had in the weeks before his sudden death, Jimpa is a peculiar work for several reasons, many of them having to do with how the director chooses to put this film together, taking a potentially promising subject and reducing it to onlya fraction of what it could’ve been had Hyde taken the time and effort to look beyond her own experiences, and instead try and bring the audience in to go on this journey alongside her.

Many themes populate Jimpa and lead us to expect something far more nuanced and compelling. The idea of a teenager who has managed to be honest about their identity (supported by a family that not only accepts who they are, but actively embraces it) suddenly being able to see that there is much more to life, a lesson that they learn through interacting with their eccentric grandfather and his insatiable lust for life, seems appealing, if not outright promising, since even when it may not be particularly original, it at least could say something meaningful and serve as a lovely story of the unexpected companionship between members of entirely different generations, united over the fact that they both possess identities that go against the status quo, something that fills them both with fear and pride in equal measure. This is precisely why Jimpa seems to be intriguing – stories of connections between generations are very compelling, since it allows for insights into how two very different people see the world, educating each other in the process. This is where the film is at its most interesting, but unfortunately does say too much of anything to actually be worth the effort. However, we do have to find the positives here, and there are some, even if they’re purely conceptual. Hyde was drawing from a very difficult chapter in her life – she was in a creative slump and her professional pursuits were not where she wanted to be, and the pressure of trying to find a way forward is only complicated by what is clearly a contentious relationship with her father, who left their family decades ago after coming out as gay, which has always been a source of quiet contention for their relationship. Most of this is filtered through the character of Frances, who is the non-binary child of Hyde’s proxy Hannah, whose relationship with their grandfather is the anchor for the film – and there’s a lot of potential here, and the film does do well in showing these two wayward souls trying to understand one another, one of the few strengths of the story that actually does prove to be relatively effective. Queerness is a subject that continues to be very important to explore on screen, but while it does have a lot of potential, it all ultimately becomes quite an overwrought affair once we realise there’s an imbalance between the concept and how it is brought to life on screen.

Jimpa is a film with good intentions, but it is unfortunately not one that is particularly good, for several reasons, many of which have to do with how Hyde chooses to tell this story. Narratively, there are decent elements, but when it comes to putting the ideas into practice, the film begins to fall apart at the seams. This is a film that doesn’t realise that its story can speak for itself, since while the moments where it is frank are quite moving, they tend to be surrounded by inexplicable additions, such as flashbacks and montages, that derail the film and make it seem less like a coherent story and more a heavy-handed bundle of images. It can be explained by Hyde wanting to make a film about memory, in which she cobbles together various aspects of her family’s past, throwing them together into a stream-of-consciousness account of the final weeks of her father’s life – but this kind of ambitious approach desperately needs a director who not only understands how to write such a story, but also can find the right balance between emotions. It seems harsh to say, but Jimpa is quite a manipulative film, in the sense that it tells the viewer exactly what to feel, and gives very little room for our own interpretation. The likely reason for this comes down to the director wanting to use this film as a confessional, a vessel through which she could filter her own vulnerabilities and unspoken anxieties that have lingered in the years since her father’s death, and while this is admirable, it mean very little when she is so overly protective of the story that she never allows the viewer into it, which is the exact opposite of what this film should’ve been. What could’ve been a beautiful, celebratory exploration of queerness through duelling perspectives – one an old man towards the end of a life in which he’s fought many battles, the other a young person discovering their own identity and being able to exist in a world that has been made far easier by people like their grandfather – is instead a heavy-handed, often quite dour (if not outright miserable) experience that lacks any real insights, and struggles to temper its emotions appropriately. The refusal to see the opportunity to be a joyful celebration of life is ultimately what weighs this film down and makes it so incredibly dull and unconvincing.

Interestingly, there is one component in Jimpa that manages to be both a merit and a shortcoming, which is the performances, which are very much a mixed bag. John Lithgow plays the titular Jimpa (based on Jim Hyde), and considering he is one of our greatest living actors, there’s no doubt that he was going to deliver something remarkable. He’s exceptionally good at playing the part of a man who genuinely believes that he is still at the peak of his life, ignoring the fact that he has grown older – he moves with the vigour and energy of a man half his age, and doesn’t realise that he is much closer to the end than he initially thought. Lithgow is wonderful, breathing so much charm and candour into the part, to the point where the fact that the film that surrounds him is so dismal feels like a genuine betrayal. Olivia Colman plays the director’s proxy, and while she does her best, this is where the film starts to lose the viewer, since it finds Colman forced to play a cypher, a woman teetering dangerously close to collapse, but who is never given the focus she deserves. Hyde isn’t sure if she wants this film to be about her or her child, and while it could have been both without any issue, it oscillates so viciously between the two that it becomes far too muddled. It doesn’t help that the part of Frances, the film’s version of the director’s non-binary teenager, is played by Aud Mason-Hyde, Hyde’s own child. I am not inherently against younger performers being given opportunities by their family members, but this performance is proof that this can sometimes be a bad choice. Mason-Hyde struggles to hold their own against their two major co-stars, and much like Hyde, this story evidently hits far too close to home, which limits them from being able to actually detach themselves from their true feelings and instead simmers in the same kind of dour, downbeat energy that envelopes the film. It’s a performance that does very little to convince us of the truth behind this story, and ultimately becomes very limiting in how they try but ultimately fail to do anything even vaguely interesting with this material, a problem that encompasses the entire film and prevents it from reaching its goals.

Just about every introductory screenwriting course tells prospective filmmakers that, when all else fails, to write from a place of experience, exploring a subject that they know inside and out, since it tends to be a good way to tell meaningful and interesting stories while also adding unique, personal insights to even the most traditional of ideas. While this is usually good advice, it does prove to be a burden when it comes to something like Jimpa, which is one of the rare instances of a director being so adamant in trying to explore her own personal past that it becomes less of a poetic film about the excavation of the human spirit, and more an attempt to dig through her own personal existential quandaries without ever letting the viewer in, instead forcing us to just peer voyeuristically into what seems like a poignant investigation into family, but in reality just feels like a poorly-conceived vanity project. It is bitterly disappointing, since it seemed like Hyde was on the precipice of achieving something very special – her earliest films, while underseen, had interesting perspectives, and the masterful work she did with Good Luck to You, Leo Grande proved that she could fashion something memorable out of a very simple premise. In many ways, Jimpa is the inverse of that film – instead of being a straightforward, simply-constructed film that focuses on the dialogue and acting, it is a heavy-handed collage that tries to make a statement about a range of topics, but is far too unfocused to saying anything even vaguely meaningful about any of them, resorting to the most obvious techniques, making it a chore to get through most of the time. This is an interesting story, but we have to wonder why Hyde chose this specific approach – a meandering, scattered memory poem that features both professional actors and the director’s own child playing a version of themselves is a peculiar choice, and nothing was being said here that couldn’t have been achieved in a more conventional form, like a documentary, which may have allowed even deeper insights to emerge. Jimpa is a film that had a lot of potential but unfortunately falters in the areas that matter, and ultimately becomes a bland, uninteresting muddle of ideas, failing to do anything even vaguely captivating with its promising material.