Director: Sophy Romvari

Stars: Eylul Guven, Iringó Réti, Ádám Tompa, Edik Beddoes

Drawing on autobiographical elements and her earlier short film ‘Still Processing’, writer-director Romvari’s picture is part memory excavation, part child’s-eye-view portrait of a family in crisis. It is the late 90s and a Hungarian married couple (Tompa and Réti) have just moved their family to a house on Vancouver island. The eight-year-old Sasha (Guven) watches her parents as they struggle with their withdrawn, antisocial eldest son Jeremy (Beddoes) and witnesses the subsequent toil it takes on their marriage. The film’s more slippery second half has a social worker with a connection to the family visit them for an interview. Guven is charmingly natural as the watchful little girl, and the picture features some keen observations on memory and regret, as well as some wistfully lyrical visuals from cinematographer Maya Bancovic. Occasionally, the imagery veers into the overwrought in its attempts to convey the family’s fragmentation, and the overall feel is oppressively gloomy.

David Willoughby

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