Kate Winslet’s festive directorial debut is enough to warm your chestnuts

Kate Winslet’s directorial debut is a full-on family affair – both on and off screen.

This sweet and weepy Christmas Netflix movie is written by her 21-year-old son Joe Anders – her only child with her second ex-husband, theatre and filmmaker Sam Mendes (Skyfall, American Beauty).

Anders tapped out Goodbye June while he was still a film school student, and Winslet was ‘so proud’ that she vowed to bring his screenwriting project to life – producing, starring and then deciding to direct it too with a top-draw cast. Lucky Joe.

The story of four siblings who gather around their dying mother (Helen Mirren) at Christmas is a hugely personal one. Kate’s mother died from ovarian cancer in 2017, an event which Winslet recently told Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast ‘still feels like yesterday.’ Trigger warning: if you’ve ever done a stint at a hospital bedside, this one is going to get you welling up.

Sentimental but not too schmaltzy, the setting is authentically non-glam. The Holiday, this is not. One December morning, June (Mirren) shuffles off to make the tea and topples to the floor. She’s whisked off to hospital – which is very recognisably NHS with its faded corridors and blue blankets – and the prognosis is not good. 

After a three-year battle with cancer, June will be lucky to make it to Christmas. 

With her husband (Timothy Spall) permanently nursing a beer, alongside a pint of denial, it’s up to their only son, the anxious Connor (Johnny Flynn), to rally his warring older siblings. 

There’s high-achieving Julia (Winslet), who barely speaks to angry, estranged Molly (Andrea Riseborough), plus all their assorted children and Molly’s annoying husband (Stephen Merchant). While the kooky, self-absorbed eldest, Helen (Toni Collette), who has suddenly announced she’s pregnant, flies in from foreign climes. 

Can June somehow restore harmony to her dysfunctional brood before it’s too late?

Winslet reportedly encouraged Joe to put together a fantasy cast for his screenplay. Then she presumably raided her contacts list. The result is a dazzling line-up of actors’ actors. And if the script does betray itself as a first feature, this cast could sell snow to the Inuits.

Each one gets their ‘moment’ in this bulging, character-driven ensemble. Collette is lumped with the broadest character of the bunch, as the crystal-waving, chakra-obsessed Helen, but even she finds nuance. Winslet and Riseborough are magnificent. Flynn looks like he could conceivably be a lost Winslet sibling himself, and there won’t be a dry eye in the house when Spall croons Georgia On My Mind to his beloved.

And if there’s a danger of June turning too saintly as death draws near, she still manages the occasional outspoken one-liner, like ‘honestly I wish I’d been a bit more of a s**t’. This is Helen Mirren, after all. 

Winslet has recently spoken out against the fillers, tweakments, Ozempic and Botox that so many women are now resorting to in a bid for timeless perfection. In Goodbye June, she’s notably cast actresses who, like herself, are ageing naturally on screen a la Clare Danes in streaming series hit The Beast In Me, which shouldn’t be something worth commenting on, but is. Let’s hope not for much longer. 

It’s a much-needed ‘keep it real’ touch amid all the twinkly fairy lights, fake snow and cute kiddies that you also get in any self-respecting Christmas Netflix movie. There’s even an angelic nurse, called, err, Angel (Fisayo Akinade). 

If, on paper, it’s yet another ‘chaotic family reunite for the holidays due to ailing parent’ scenario, the whole shebang never feels tired. Perhaps that’s down to the enthusiastic, gung-ho energy of Winslet’s filmmaking. 

Embracing the fact that she and Joe are both first-time filmmakers, she also gave others a shot. The department heads included a first-time costume and production designer, as well as a first-time composer – seemingly none of them are actually related to her.

Heartfelt rather than visionary, this Crimbo drama is unlikely to get the Mare of Easttown actress quitting her day job. Tonally, it could’ve done with a bit more darkness. But, honestly, do we really want that at this time of year?

Just about bittersweet enough, it’s still one to warm your chestnuts.

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