Review by Jessica Carr
If you knew that your parent invited you to their home for the weekend because at the end of it they were going to commit physician-assisted suicide, what would you do? This is the big question at the center of Roger Michell’s Blackbird. The dark comedy stars big names like Susan Sarandon, Sam Neill, Kate Winslet, Rainn Wilson, and Mia Wasikowska. It is effective at making the audience care for the characters even if the film borders on being overly melodramatic at times.
Blackbird centers around Lily (Susan Sarandon) and husband Paul (Sam Neill) as they summon their two daughters Jennifer (Kate Winslet) and Anna (Mia Wasikowska) to come home for the weekend. Lily is terminally-ill and wants to spend time with the family before she takes her own life at the end of the weekend. It is unclear exactly what Lily has been diagnosed with, but the film alludes to ALS, as Lily is starting to lose control of her motor functions. She cannot use her left hand and wants to end her life before the disease causes her to lose control of her body completely.
There are lots of dark comedy bits that can be found in the script, and it’s one of the film’s most endearing aspects. It helps the audience connect to the characters and allows them to bond with Lily and her family – which isn’t to say that the movie is doing anything new with familial drama. It has the overbearing older daughter (played by Winslet) who is uptight and walks around with a stick up her ass, and in contrast, there is the wanderlust younger daughter who smokes pot and doesn’t know what to do with her life. These are characters we’ve seen before, but the different personalities coming together is really what builds the tension in the movie. The best moments in the film are the ones where everyone is spending time together; they understand that their moments are precious, and they take full advantage of that.
Overall, I don’t think Blackbird is reinventing the wheel or anything. However, it does create a film that is a good meditation on grief and what we do with the time we have with our loved ones. I think it’s effective at what it’s trying to achieve, and it does so with the audience in mind. Something that the next movie I’m going to cover doesn’t do so well...