Toronto Film Review: ‘Blackbird’

Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet, Mia Wasikowska, Sam Neill, Bex Taylor-Klaus, Rainn Wilson, Lindsay Duncan, Anson Boon.is one of the most reliably graceful directors of English-language screen drama, rising to the occasion of fine but challenging scripts , that deft touch elevating material that’s more conventional or less than inspired. His good taste certainly makes a class act of “,” Christian Torpe’s Americanization of the screenplay Bille August made into 2014’s Danish “Silent Heart.

The two sisters immediately get on each other’s nerves, as Anna can’t stop screwing up and Jennifer can’t stop conspicuously judging her for it. But in general, personal agendas are suspended to honor mom’s wishes — which include ordering that Christmas be celebrated Saturday night, complete with deluxe holiday dinner and decorated tree, though it’s still autumn.

That said, the actors do their considerable best. Sarandon makes Lily a spiky free spirit whose caustic, brusque side has perhaps been exacerbated by frustration at the dependency that illness thrusts upon her. Winslet subsumes her usual radiance to emphasize Jennifer’s qualities as a born nag, almost to the point of caricature. Wasikowska likewise uses fairly broad strokes effectively as a sibling whose problems may seem rooted in simple immature petulance, but in fact run much deeper.

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