Dying

Out of all the film’s many achievements, perhaps the most impressive is the ability to keep the tone balanced just on this biting point between tragedy and comedy in scene after scene.

The film’s diligent script and nuanced performances are such that the depressing material stops short of turning into a depressing experience.

The script’s wandering and overlapping arcs can feel uneven and tricksy, yet there’s something utterly compelling in how Glasner stages decay not just as a biological inevitability, but a doomy familial legacy.

Writer-director Glasner’s control of tone in a potential misery fest that – believe it or not – contains a bunch of laugh-out-loud moments is pitch perfect, most of the time.

This is a bleak, bold, extravagantly crazy story which is emotionally incorrect at all times.

A film of remarkable performance and subject matter, laid low by unremarkable filmmaking.