The Grief of Others

It’s an artful portrait of a world that refuses the order we try to impose on it when we close ourselves off to heartache, doubt and pain.

This a much leaner film in terms of narrative incident than In the Family, though it paves the way for Patrick Wang to step into new artistic terrain.

Wang favors static, wide, one-take shots, to underscore the relentlessness of his characters’ suffering. But — like Jost — he also has a knack for primitive in-camera effects. The final shot is a triumph of both economy and feeling.

More experimental in form and wobbly in execution than its predecessor, this searching adaptation of Leah Hager Cohen’s 2011 novel nonetheless evokes a family’s fragile inner life in ineffably moving fashion, capturing how distant and isolated parents and children can feel from one another even when living under the same roof

Wang's movie is empathetic enough not to pass negative judgment on the characters as they muddle through their experience.

A step up in terms of complexity, with more subplots and a larger cast of protagonists to juggle and less instantly sympathetic characters or an evident cause to rally behind, this drama again offers many quiet, often character-driven rewards but struggles to become larger than the sum of its parts.

It’s every bit as human-scaled as the filmmaker’s other work — but also, in its noble restraint, a little less involving.