Well-won laughs make June Again worth seeing
June Again (M, 99 mins) Directed by JJ Winlove Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★1⁄2
Acouple of months before my Mum died, we were on the phone, talking about absolutely nothing, as you do when you know this might be the last time, and you have already said everything you can.
But my Mum’s voice suddenly became very serious, as though a chill had swept through wherever she thought she was.
‘‘Listen,’’ she said, ‘‘I need to say something. You were always a terrible disappointment to me, and I’m not sure I ever really loved you.’’
I was as blind-sided as you might imagine, barely breathing and unsure whether to even reply, when she continued, ‘‘And I wish I’d never married you’’.
It makes me laugh a bit to this day, that mixture of relief that she was still mad-as-a-chook and hadn’t experienced a moment of lucidity, and a kind of profound sadness that she had and at least one of her two
marriages was maybe that dire.
Wellington-raised JJ Winlove, making his feature debut with June Again, is walking a similarly complicated path.
Daughter Ginny (Claudia Karvan), son Devon (Stephen Curry) and their respective spouses and kids might all be delighted and amazed that Mum, June, (the brilliant Noni Hazlehurst) is experiencing clarity after five years of stroke-induced incomprehension.
However, with the formidable June back so suddenly and unexpectedly, their own lives are thrown into turmoil. There is a lot of catching up to do, but also many decisions made that cannot be undone, not all of them to June’s liking.
This isn’t a film you’ll ever compare favourably to – say –
Sarah Polley’s Away From Her, but it does at least avoid the selfconsciously theatrical gameplaying of The Father – no matter how incandescent Anthony Hopkins might have been in the lead.
June Again finds a hellishly fine line between the comedic and romanticised – and a sporadically quite bruising exploration of what dementia can wreak on an individual, and then on the people who love them.
It doesn’t all work – and a cynic could find plenty to criticise. But for its well-won laughs, occasional moments of grit and for somehow engineering a final beat that is sweetly optimistic and entirely deserved, I mostly enjoyed June Again just fine.
I’m pretty sure my Mum would have liked it too.