Goodbye June: Some Hard Truths About What Really Happens When Mom Dies...    

February 2026

 

It was the cankles on the dad that first caught my eye...

 

Those swollen tree trunks of an aging body...

Filled the frame as dad sat on the toilet with his boxers draped around his feet...

While mom was struggling to breathe downstairs in the kitchen...

 

It was then I knew that Goodbye June...

 

This year’s entry in the Xmas Death Movie Sweepstakes...

Now streaming on Netflix...

 

Was going to go heavy on verisimilitude...

 

And it didn’t disappoint...

 

Because the pain on June’s face as she is dying of cancer...

And is suffering the increasing indignities that come with that process...

Is not forced... it’s just there...every day...

Building in intensity like a slow-moving storm...

 

And when she sits on the side of the tub suffering in solitary silence...

Away from the family that has come to be with her...

These are the scenes in which Helen Mirren shines...

 

And the fact that she wants to be alone in these moments...

Is significant...

But the reason why....

Is unfortunately missed by all her children...

 

But more on that later...

 

Yet for one moment this film belongs to Timothy Spall...

As the husband and father...

 

Who sits in the hospital room drinking beer...

And yelling at the TV...

When he isn’t at the pub...

As if none of this is impacting his life...

Which drives his children crazy...

 

But for one brief moment...

That comes in a single scene...

 

Spall owns this movie...

 

As his face slowly changes...

From what has looked like apparent indifference...

Melts into profound grief...

As he hovers over his dying wife...

 

Spall says nothing in this scene...

Which is a master class in acting...

And is profoundly moving....

 

But no movie is a single moment...

 

So credit should also go to Joe Anders...

Who wrote the screenplay...

 

Which is impressive for an initial effort...

Even if he is the son of Sam Mendes...

 

And to his mother, Kate Winslet ...

Who both starred and directed this movie...

 

And Winslet... in her directorial debut...

Has made a film that flows far better than Anemone...

The other movie that came out this year...

From another of the British Royal Families of Film ...

 

And her son has written a family story that gets so much right...

About family dynamics when a mother is dying......

 

Because dads do often check out if there are daughters...

To take over....

 

The son does often take it the hardest when mom is dying...

 

And there is usually one child who gives everyone a hard time...

And Andrea Riseborough as Molly...

Is a very angry woman who is certain she is right...about everything...

And verbally abuses... everyone she comes in contact with......

But especially the staff taking care of her mother...

 

Now that is usually the family member...

Who has the most guilt about how they treated mom...

And is the hardest on the people taking care of her.....

 

But in this film... none of the children, including Molly, give their mother that much trouble...

So this is one area where Anders misses the mark...

 

Another is that no one is allowed to spend weeks slowly dying of cancer in a hospital anymore...

In neither the UK... where this film is set

Nor the US...

 

Because if there is no room in hospice...

Dying patients are sent home...

 

Where the family ...

And, importantly, not the state nor the insurance company...

Bear the burden of providing care...

 

Because it costs these systems very little...

When an unpaid family member is doing most of the work...

 

And the people in charge of health care systems aren’t stupid...

 

Anders also gives in to the familiar trope found in films about people dying of cancer...

The Nurse as a Wise Angel of Comfort and Wisdom...

(See also Wit....)

 

Sometimes they are...

But often they are so overwhelmed ...

They do not have the time to be.... even if they wanted to...

 

And Goodbye June...

 

Also follows the arc of other Xmas Death Movies...

 

Which does seem a strange genre...

 

But every so often...

We get a film about a family coping with a mother’s impending death...

That is set around Christmas...

(See The Family Stone and One True Thing)

 

And these films usually feature a family in conflict...

That is reconciled as mom dies...

Through her final efforts...

 

So these films often have a postscript

Set a year later...

After mom has passed...

Where they all gather for Christmas...

 

To remember her...

And celebrate in a heart-warming tableau...

As a now united family...

Mom’s final gift to her family...

(See The Family Stone...)

 

Except.. let’s be real...

 

When the mother dies...

Families often fragment...

Because it is often mom who is the glue...

That holds it together...

 

So the ending of this film is wishful thinking...

 

Because frequently after their mother has passed ...

Siblings go their own way...

New families form...

 

As the old one withers away....

 

And knowing this makes Goodbye June especially poignant...

Because June’s life’s work was her family...

 

But if we are going to be realistic...

 

Most of us who have been through this...

Know what is going to happen when June is gone...

 

But that is not the story Anders wants to tell...

 

Because June is the fulcrum around which this family revolves...

And Anders presents her as a mother who loves...

And is well loved in return...

 

And so her entire family fills her room...

And plans a Christmas play they think she will like...

 

But...here’s the thing...

 

And I have seen this many times...

 

This is more for them than her...

 

Because if you watch June...

 

And this is where Mirren captures what happens when you die slowly...

She feels miserable...

Is in constant pain...

Has little energy...

 

And all the effort it takes for her to interact constantly with her family...

Drains her diminishing resources ...

 

So she sometimes sends them away...

 

But they don’t pick up on how she feels...

And ignore the signals she is sending them...

 

And so keep acting on the premise that they know what she wants in her final days...

 

When it is...

In fact...

Really what they want...

To make themselves feel better...

 

Which is a performance ...

To show how much they love her...

Even if it is not what June really needs...

As she lies drained and dying  ...

 

So the staging of the family Christmas play in Goodbye June......

And how this movie ends...

 

Taps into something very real...

About families and death...

 

And it is the medical staff in Goodbye June who understand what is happening as June’s life slips away...

And what she needs...

 

While the family does not...

 

As they insist on dragging her from her room...

 

To watch them perform...

 

So this is one of the many reasons why this fine film...

Should be seen by anyone with an aging parent...

 

Because that time comes for all of us...

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