Kate Winslet is well-known for highly acclaimed roles in projects like Titanic, The Reader and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but now she’s hitting the 2025 movie calendar with her debut from behind the camera in Goodbye June. The Christmas drama, which was written by her son Joe Anders, is set to hit Netflix on December 24, and critics who have screened it ahead of time agree that this tearjerker leans hard on its stellar cast.
Leading that ensemble is Helen Mirren, who plays the titular matriarch, alongside Timothy Spall as June’s husband and Toni Collette, Johnny Flynn, Andrea Riseborough, and Kate Winslet as their four children, who gather around their dying mother over the holidays. Helen O’Hara of Empire gives Goodbye June 4 out of 5 stars, calling it a strong directorial debut that captures the strange mix of emotions that can accompany losing a loved one. The critic says:
Winslet’s son Joe Anders wrote the script, and for the most part it’s an excellent first effort that digs into the strange mix of sadness and humour and sometimes fury that death can provoke. A few scenes feel a little on the nose (did Fisayo Akinade’s saintly nurse need to be named Angel?), but if there are other faults, the strength of this cast more than papers over them. Everyone’s brought their A-game to Winslet’s first outing as coach, and she evidently had a sure hand for what they need to do great work.
Caryn James of THR says the upcoming Netflix movie is at times “a little too heart-tugging,” but the ensemble makes it worth the watch. Kate Winslet shows promise as a director, while her son is talented but could use some more originality in his next project. James continues:
Most of Anders’ characters and dialogue are impressively realistic, but structurally the film is much weaker. It relies on too many familiar tropes — every family spat is addressed, the misunderstood characters reveal their hidden goodness, the audience’s emotional strings are pulled — and a couple of major characters seem shoehorned in for variety. But the film is lovely in the graceful way it executes its unsurprising content, and the actors make it soar even at its most predictable.
Lindsey Bahr of the AP gives Goodbye June 2.5 out of 4, saying that Kate Winslet’s straight-forward direction suits the tone of the movie, and aside from a few questionable choices, the film delivers moments of grace, humor and insight. Bahr writes:
Put alongside most of the Christmas offerings on Netflix, which seem to veer more toward the secret princess/fantasy/romance side of things, and aren’t even attempting to be, well, very good, Goodbye June is an admirably solid, if generic, drama about family and death with a very distinguished cast. Terminal illness, estranged adult siblings and hospital rooms are certainly not going to be everyone’s cup of tea around the holidays, but you probably already know by this point whether this is an experience you want to sign up for.
Peyton Robinson of RogerEbert also says it’s obvious Kate Winslet is an actor-turned-director in the way that she allows the actors to do the heavy lifting rather than crafting anything from behind the camera. That’s for the best with what the critic calls a “formulaic and forgettable” story with a hotshot cast that feels incongruent with its content. Robinson continues:
The sentimentality of Goodbye June is also its Achilles’ heel. It tiptoes the line between manipulative and too tidy, with the tightrope itself being the center of mawkishness. It’s sickly sweet, even amidst witty banter (primarily from Spall’s one-liners) and genuine sincerity. Its earnestness can be effective, particularly a hallway heart-to-heart between Riseborough and Winslet that shows the film can find its footing when it zooms in on personal relationships and away from overly generalized, heartsick hoopla.
Guy Lodge of Variety also thinks that Helen Mirren and company aren’t quite enough to “mask the shallow sentimentality of the material.” The script lacks the ring of lived experience, Lodge says, and none of the impressive ensemble are in peak form. He writes:
Thus is the stage set for a familiar but potentially affecting tale of nearest-and-dearest bickering and bonding, designed to have viewers weeping into their eggnog during a tonal break from Netflix’s frothier seasonal fare. But the film never quite locates the heart, in large part because it never cracks its collective of variously dissatisfied characters.
It sounds like critics think Kate Winslet shows promise at the helm, and while some saw authenticity in Joe Anders’ script, it sounds like others would like to see her direct something that is not her son’s film school project. With this cast, this will be a hard one to pass up for movie lovers who don’t mind a little holiday sobfest, so fire up your Netflix subscriptions for Goodbye June, coming Wednesday, December 24.
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