Goodbye June: Life, death and Nativity plays with Andrea Riseborough and Timothy Spall

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0:54ho ho ho hello and welcome back to bah humbug the christmas movie podcast that is really trying to find the festive cheer in this one because it's a little bit of a harder search than normal hello everybody my name is helen o 'hara and i'm here today to talk about goodbye june which is one of those Christmas movies that is not so Christmassy as the rest, because this one is about, look, there's no dancing around it. This is about Helen Mirren dying slowly with all her family around her. That is what it is. And there is some Christmas cheer. I'm slightly exaggerating, but it's just a little bit less maybe than we're used to.

1:32To talk about it with me today, I am absolutely delighted to be joined by Beth Webb, news editor of Empire and film guru. Ruth. Beth, how are you doing? Hello. Hi, I'm really glad we're not sharing the video of this because I laughed so much then when you said Helen Mirren dying slowly and it made me look insane. Yes, just to be clear, we do not support this as an approach in life. You know, we would like her to be around for many, many, many decades to come because she's wonderful. But yes, this is a family drama wherein Helen Mirren plays the matriarch, the titular June, the titular June, who, as we meet her, basically goes into hospital experiencing a recurrence of the cancer that has already sort of struck her low.

2:15And it's made clear to her family that this time there's no sort of coming back from it. So it's quite heavy stuff. And then her daughters, who are played by Kate Winslet, who is also the director of this film and the mother of its screenwriter and also Andrea Risborough and also Toni Collette and that her son played by Johnny Flynn and her husband played by Timothy Spall. Oh my God, what a cast. All rushed to her bedside and basically, you know, have to see her through the next few weeks, hoping that she'll make it to Christmas. So just first of all, overall, Beth, what did you think of this?

2:51Did you like it? Did you enjoy it? Did you rate it? What do you think of Kate Winslet director? Yes. Yeah, it was, quite wonderful I mean I love Kate Winslet show me a person who doesn't love Kate Winslet and to direct a Christmas film as well feels very special she's obviously a Christmas staple with the holiday and the Christmas Carol film which the name of which is escaping me but she sang a delightful song for that I remember which I think was like a Christmas number one so all this to say I was thrilled to see her make her directorial debut with a Christmas film obviously very different to the holiday very different to Christmas Carol.

3:29I mean, it's called Goodbye June, right? It's not called Hi June. It's about a lady who dies. And we're kind of chucked in at the deep end in the opening minutes. I remember watching it and thinking from the opening section that we were going to get a very different film to the film that we get because it establishes the fall that will consequently bring Helen Mirren to hospital. And she chooses to stay there, right? Like she's given the option to go stay with all these siblings who are kind of falling over themselves to home her. And, you know, it's very, she's very fortunate to be in that position, but she chooses to stay in hospital with the staff.

4:07And I think it is a very sweet kind of nod to the NHS as well, which is quite special. Yeah, I really like that about it. I think they've gone under their way to give the NHS its props, give it its flowers maybe, and sort of pay tribute to the very well-meaning, very hard-working people who work there, which I really, really liked. Because, of course, we do hear a lot about, you know, shortcomings and problems and budget cuts and everything else. But it is also worth saying that the people who work there are literal angels. In this case, there's one of them literally called Angel. And that, you know, and that they do an extraordinary job for people at the lowest and most difficult moments of their lives.

4:45Not just June herself, but the family as well. You know, they're kind of they're trying to counsel them through it. They're trying to help them along. They're trying to give her everything she needs so she can, you know, die with dignity, I guess. It's a really lovely film that way. It's got a huge amount of heart. Yes, absolutely. And it really thoroughly explores the dynamics between a family as well. There's no kind of rose tinted glasses as to, you know, this isn't a family all coming together, hugs and kisses and hope. It's messy and upsetting. And, you know, there are moments of real, there's such nuance and even like harsh moments as well.

5:26like um uh the siblings are quite tough on timothy spool's character the father who is you can't help but melt for a little bit like he's clearly you know it's one of that generation of married couples where they've been married for so long and they're so codependent on each other and he's so clearly lost yeah while she's clearly slipping away from him but showing his feelings in a very male way of that generation hardy and bad puns and you know just wondering why the tv's not working while his wife is suffering but really he's just trying to make sense of the world as best he can yeah and then you've got johnny flint's character who is dealing with it's it's not named but you assume depression panic attacks and then angina riceborough's character and kate wins it's julia they they really don't get on and it's quite savage there's moments where you think oh god this is not comfortable whatsoever but it just adds to the kind of rewarding aspect of June bringing them together and then putting their differences aside and you know it's it's rupture repair right it's it's them kind of working through it and getting the spirit of Christmas without it being too schmaltzy that said like oh I cried I cried so much there was a real lights up moment at the end of the screening I was in and literally everyone it was a screening room it wasn't a cinema sadly but there was like 10 people in there all in in floods of tears which I've never had before yeah it was yeah it really does have the emotional aspect of this 100 % it's a very very strange mix and a very febrile mix of emotions you you really don't know how to deal with it there's no easy way to do it and there's at whatever time of year you know it's never an easy thing and I think it's an it's an interesting approach here that June you know she's not resigned.

7:15She's not happy about dying. She's not cool with it or anything. She's not some saint. But she has had a bit more time to adjust to this than everyone else. You get the sense. And you get the sense of when she is with them, she is trying to do something, sort of leave something positive behind and leave them maybe in a better state than they have been when we meet them over the last few months or few years or however long this state of affairs has taken to come about. She's like I have this trump card which is that I'm dying so you have to listen to me now so I'm going to play it and you're going to be nice to each other so there you go yeah yeah absolutely it's like you're saying you know it's it's that kind of universal theme it's obviously they're quite a they're not in a bad place they're not a working class family when they're trying to suss out who she goes to Kate Winslet's junior is like you know we've got heated floors where we It's all very lovey-dovey and sweet-natured, but it is tapping into something universal there where we've all, most of us at this stage, have stood at a bedside in a hospital and had to have a really, really tough time.

8:20And I think they really do go to such lengths to make sure that they do those experiences justice. Yeah. Yeah, I think so too. I think it's a lovely portrait of a family dynamic as well. It was all too believable. Obviously, my own sisters are saints and would never behave like the women in this film. Just to be very clear, just very clear, just in case. But, you know, it did make sense. These people did feel like they, you know, these are the roles we have taken in this family. Toni Collette is the woo-woo one who's off in a different country, living her own life in a woo-woo fashion. Kate Winslet is the one carrying the weight of the world.

8:56Yes, she does have heated floors, and I am very jealous of her at this time of year. but she's also helping to pay everybody else's mortgage and looking out for this and paying for that and picking up these bits and you get the sense that she is a donkey on the edge really, isn't she? And then Johnny Flynn is just all heart and no ability to regulate his emotions it feels like whatsoever. He is just an open wound for most of this film and he's absolutely heartbreaking. I just loved his character. Me too, me too. I mean it's a hard ensemble to kind of slot into right and everyone here is bringing their you can't not bring your A game of Kate Winslet behind the camera right everyone was acting with a capital A like every ounce of screen time was flooded with just such raw vulnerability that could just leap out at any time and it often does especially with Johnny Flynn's character but I feel like he really held his own having probably not had the same amount of on-screen experience as everybody else.

9:56You still have plenty, but to kind of break through and hold us in there was really admirable. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely agree. What did you think of the script, by the way? So this is by Kate Winslet's son, Joe Anders. Kind of first time, I think, screenwriter. Yes. I thought it was pretty good. I mean, I have some nits to pick, but generally I thought this is a really strong start. It was a strong start. So I interviewed Kate for the magazine, which was a real, as an effed up girl looking for her own peace of mind, this was a real APHB moment so yeah he wrote it in screenwriting class and showed her kind of the early workings of the script and she saw some real potential there which you know probably as a mom you're not going to be like ah kid no but she you know really really saw potential there she came aboard as producer and I can see why I can see why again it is those universal themes it is tapping into the nuances of grief and emotion from a multi-generational aspect that's really ambitious it's not one person's perspective it's four siblings a dying mother and her codependent husband you know and the NHS worker angel as you mentioned so there is a real ambition there which I think is really commendable I think sometimes it slips a little into the kind of christmas cliches but i think at the same time it's a christmas film like it is fine it is fine to talk about hoping to come back as snow so i could be with you all at christmas you know that in in the christmas oeuvre that is that is completely fine but yeah i think it's it's a great sort of first effort from him what he's managed to do and he is not and and i think he's in his early 20s still so to be able to pull something like this off is it's pretty great yeah i agree with that.

11:43I think the danger with this is that it could, and I'll be honest, sometimes did feel a bit one note because you literally do have a person dying in the background that everyone else on screen cares about. So it's very hard to, you know, yuck it up. Like there are some comic moments in here. It's not completely one note at all, but it's very hard to have any real moments of joy, per se, and full lightness until maybe, you know, the very, very end of the movie. And, you know, That's kind of a difficult thing. So I maybe would have liked just a little bit more tonal variation, but I'm genuinely not sure how you could have done it.

12:15So maybe that's a very unfair criticism on my part. And then there were a couple of scenes I didn't love so much. There's a final sort of confrontation between Andrew Rysborough and Kate Winslet's characters as the two kind of most at loggerhead sisters. And the two, I think, who have, you know, who are most worried about everything, who have taken most upon themselves and who have the most children to look after. and are really just really up against it. And I thought I would have liked just one more draft on that. But I am nitpicking. Like I did think it was a good script overall. And in a world where so many Christmas films are identikit nonsense, it's lovely to see something with real substance to it, which I think this has.

12:57Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree. And you do feel the whole sort of when she was speaking about the experience of shooting it, like they shot over, I think it was 35 days, and she describes it as real a boots up British filmmaking and admittedly that is Kate Winslet doing boots up British filmmaking this is not some first time filmmaker from nowhere but you do really feel that sense of everybody mucking in of this real kind of it's not a glossy film by any stretch I know it's got you know Netflix money and it's probably got Kate Winslet it has got Kate Winslet money but you really do get this sense of everybody mucking in everybody coming together and I think that only fortifies that feeling of unity that we see.

13:41Yeah, absolutely. I think it's pretty, pretty lovely stuff. Yeah, really, really good stuff. And a very good start for this Kate Winslet. I think she could go places, you know. I really do. I also do. Okay, so let's rate it. Out of five, what would you give it for Christmassy-ness? So this is aside from the quality of the film, this is literally just its Christmassy-ness as a whole. I don't know. What have you given five before? Am I allowed to ask for context for this? Yeah, I think so. I think something like an elf would be five, right? Okay. That's pretty obvious. This is really good to know.

14:14Yeah. Or like Muppet Christmas Carol, that's a nailed on five. Yeah, yeah. But the sum that just take place in winter, essentially, with a tree at the end, like Pillion, our beloved Pillion, that's going to score lower on Christmassy-ness, but not zero. That might be a two or a three. Well, should we say, I mean, it is predominantly set at Christmas there's baubles aplenty there's snuggles and cookings of triple birth oh can we give a shout out to Stephen Merchant actually what is it he buys a Christmas dinner and he's so thrilled with himself that he managed to get it. Gurduck? Is it a Gurduckin?

14:50I think it's a Gurduckin he was sent to buy a goose and he buys a goose stuffed with a turkey stuffed with a duck or something like that and then hearing him break it down in his like West Country accent is so funny props to Merchant for that should we say maybe a subtle can we do like a subtle four because I would say aside from the opening section isn't that's bordering on like Ken Loach does a Christmas film and then it gets rosier and better in a Christmas capacity so maybe a subtle four does that sound yeah I would say 3.5 because we're live for half stars here on Baham 3.5 to a four I think is about right because you have all the elements you have decorations you have You have the dinner, you have a nativity play.

15:38Bonus points for that. You have a lot of family togetherness. It's very much about family togetherness. I think all of these things score highly. But there is also a lot of death. And that, you know, it's got to lose some points. I need to stop laughing when you say this stuff. But there is a lot of death. Yeah. It does take away somewhat from the cosiness and joy of the season, I'm afraid to say. Yeah, that's fair. What about overall as a movie? What would you give it out of five? I will give it four I'm gonna I'm gonna retract to say 3.5 on the Christmas factor it's very liberating to give a 0.5 yeah yeah you don't you don't get to do that in your you don't get to do that in your day job so she's going 3.5 and then I go forward for this I I think it's such a wonderful collaborative effort I think there's a scrappiness to that but in a complimentary way I think a scrappiness to the screenwriting but the performances are just so I mean, as we said, they're never going to be anything other than fantastic, but they really do ground this.

16:41It could have easily gone too far into Saturine, you know, it could have been Mork-ish, sort of in the wrong hands, but they really do ground this. There's moments of such joy and tenderness and pain. And when this sort of final sequence comes, and it's not a spoiler to say she dies, there's, despite knowing that it's coming, it does just knock the wind out of you. And that is just such a testament to all of them and what they can do. Absolutely. I would 100 % agree on that. Speaking of the acting, something I totally failed to queue up at the beginning, we have an interview. We have an interview with Andrew Riseborough and Timothy Spall, who I went along to talk to in a London hotel room recently.

17:20And they have a lot more to say about working with Kate Winslet and Christmas. So please enjoy this interview.

17:30Andrew Riseborough and Timothy Spall, welcome to Bar Humbug. Happy Christmas. Oh, and the same to you. Oh, happy Christmas. This is an odd one for me because I'm used to, you know, we focus on Christmas movies here. That means a lot of strange little rom-coms where Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer turns into a male model or something in a small town. We don't usually have actual proper movies. I mean, I'm making it up, but I'm not that far off the reality. You want to get that copyright, mate. But this is a proper movie. This is a genuinely lovely family drama that just happens to be set at Christmas time.

18:07So can you tell me how you first heard about it, how it came to you?

18:13Certainly. So Joe Anders, who'd written the script, had almost finished it. And Kate Winslet, who directed the film and is in it, sent it to me. And I thought it was so beautiful. And there were a few more drafts after that. That was kind of very early on. And I think that was before anybody else had read it or come on board. And then Joe shared it with Johnny. And then, you know, more and more of us came on board. Yeah, amazing. And how about you? When did you hear it? Well, I heard it. My agent once said, Kate Winslet wants to talk. There's a script. She wants to talk to you about it first. And I worked with Kate when she was 20.

18:54And I'd only seen her once on an aeroplane. And when she came on, we did this when I was filming in Wales. she came on the Zoom she was exactly the same as I remember when I saw her on the plane when she was 20 open clever brilliant and she told me the history of this this generally about the script and said you know I said I'm really I really don't know whether I'm going to be able to read at the moment I'm so busy on doing this you know who done it comedy and I just it's just kidding me and I read it the following day and she said take your time and I said I'm going to do it and she was she's having a picture of her dancing with Joe and I thought well this is you know as if I was going to turn it down because it was brilliant it's her and what I remember from this person who walked into that room when we did have it together she was open she was funny she was uber intelligent and she was obviously paying attention she was working with Ang Lee and she told a very funny self-deprecating story I thought this is a clever and very interesting girl this is someone going a long way and I didn't think I was wrong now here right, and now we've done this again, and she is superb, and it has been, and that's how I came across it.

20:01When she actually sent me that video of them dancing, and I burst into tears. Oh, you sweet are. It was a really big moment for everybody when Tim came on board. Well, that's so sweet, because when she was talking about who else was in it, it was like, yes, brilliant, yes, brilliant, brilliant. These are all people I love, Andrea. I mean, all of them. I couldn't believe it. I thought, are you going to get... Yeah, and she got them all. I mean it was unbelievable and I thought well I want to be in the same Christmas club as that lot I mean it's not bad for a debutante director is it you know Helen Mirren and Timothy Spall and Andrew Risborough and everyone in there but how was it how was she as a director was she very much the same way she is as a co-star well of course it is you know she's a first-time director but also the 30 years that she spent being so discerning and kind and professional and brilliant and imaginative.

20:57Those are all the things that drew us to being part of this. So this is the manifestation of something that's been coming for a long time, I think. And she was so brilliantly equipped on every level. We didn't even think twice about it because it's so natural for Kate. She's a brilliant leader and a very generous one. And she knows as much as anything to give you your space and let you do the best that you can. And there's no judgment from her. She's a really incredible person and just somebody you want to be close to in life, which is a great sign, always, I think. She does emanate that extraordinary openness and power and there is just something about her that you know is so able.

21:45And all that time, as I said, that she's been in this profession as an actress, being one of our best, one of our greatest, she's paid attention. She has paid absolutely. And if you're paying attention to working with some of the best directors in the world and knowing, and with some of the people you don't get on with, I'm sure, you're going to know what you like and what you don't. And because she has this incredible empathy with other actors and this ability to organise and this absolutely amazingly strong, infectious will, the preparation she'd done on this, right across the board, the ability to be all over everything without even looking like it and to conduct this atmosphere, to create this atmosphere and this atmosphere with these children and to really, literally, in this crew, this solidarity, was quite extraordinary.

22:33That is really 70 % of great directing and that is what she I think officially is I would like to say that. Otherwise you have nothing to capture. Did you have a lot of rehearsal time? Were you able to sort of build that family dynamic? I guess it's a slightly dysfunctional family dynamic at the beginning so we maybe don't want to have it fully built I guess. We had a lot of bonding time. I think the thing is that the springboard is always what's on the page and so that's where we started and it was very clear and beautifully written and it also felt like Kate wanted us to be playful, as did Joe, with that material and then gathering up your energy again and then almost going into battle, you know, as the camera rolls.

23:17From my experience, when you work with people that you watch and you see they're good and they're consistently good, contrary to popular belief, where you think somebody's really brilliant and successful, that they might be arrogant and in some way pleased with themselves, it's quite the contrary often i find when you get a group of actors who are really good and done and been around a long time they know there's no time for that they just haven't got time and they were straight into it everybody was just and everybody acknowledges that we're all kind of scared we all don't know whether we're going to make it work so that's one of the big problems really experienced just acknowledging they will say i'm not shitting it you know i'm sure i know we all are so let's just get on with it there's no displacement activity there's none of that it's just a group of really really interesting people getting putting their energy in their egos into the right torpedo compartment to fire it into the work nowhere else and it's so enjoyable uh when everybody's on that same page you know generally great actors are dead nice quite right i did want to ask specifically about your character so you know andrea you mentioned sort of going into battle almost when the cameras rolled and that does seem to have shouldn't have used that phrase it does feel like it's molly's attitude for a lot of the film that she's sort of bracing herself for the next you know thing that she has to deal with and that she's very tightly wind at times and very sort of worried i guess about everything i can understand how that might how it might come across like that i think the experience sort of more internally was was actually just being in a state of defence all the time to the point where there was no conscious thought of going into battle, if that makes sense.

25:02So when I, as Andrea is saying, going into battle, what I'm talking about is a bunch of theatre actors, you know, rallying together and putting on the dance number. That's what I mean. That's my version of battle. What's your best shuffle ball change? but for Molly I think she is desperately seeking affirmation from her older sister desperately seeking it and it's coming out in all the wrong ways and sideways and sometimes at bus drivers and people in the street as it does when you haven't exactly when you've not channeled it in the correct way she doesn't have the tools yet but you know throughout the film gets them they all get a lot of tools it's wonderful to see them reconnect in a different way and reconnect beyond June, who is, of course, the glue that binds.

25:54Yeah, and the catalyst. I mean, her intention is that she's going to go to her death. Being the catalyst to make this flipping bunch of people get back on the right track, avoid the casting that they've cast each other in themselves as well. They've all cast themselves in these roles and they're all playing as cast. and it's annoying to her to see it because she's had them in their arm. She's seen Bernie as a young man and she's had these babies in her arms and they've grown up to these bloody pain in the arses who she adores but they're not getting on and her death wish is that they do and that's what this film is about to a certain degree.

26:37She gives them the right to transcend that, doesn't she? Yeah, and she's got the tools because she's dying and there's no bigger card to play than that. And Bernie is clearly deeply feeling, but dealing with it very, very badly for much of the film. Yeah, well, that's what I said about casting. He's cast himself as a joker. He's trapped in this thing. It's conveniently avoidant. He doesn't, but they kind of expect him of him. It allows him to be annoying and to be selfish. Of course, underneath it all, there is this man who's going through hell with this death. And it just melts your heart, really.

27:16It really does, yeah. I mean, that karaoke scene is heartbreaking. I wanted to ask as well about the staging of a nativity play during the film because, you know, this is something that's mega Christmassy. Like, so many people have been through it. I wanted to ask, were you guys in a nativity play in school? Do you remember who you played? Oh, rather ironically, perhaps, I was an angel. Oh, of course, naturally. I think, had foil wings, I think. You must have been then, yeah. Do you know what, I must have been, I think I might have been a cow or something, I don't know what I was. I think I was just trying to go and sit in the corner and lower.

27:55They didn't spot you as a future star at that point? No, I did the lion in The Wizard of Oz, and that was a big moment, but that's another story. That's another story. There's a couple of questions that I ask everybody who comes on this podcast. First of all, do you have a favourite Christmas movie that you watch every year? Is there something that you go back to over and over again? I do, actually. It's just been, I watched it recently on film, The Muppets Christmas Carol, which is just one of the most beautiful in terms of production design and creativity. And it's just such a gorgeous, gorgeous film.

28:27And to see it on film was really special. I saw it at the Tyneside Cinema, which is in the northeast. they screened it on Christmas a couple of years ago. I mean, it's honestly very faithful to Dickens. It's a very, very good adaptation. It's fascinating. It's really fascinating how they managed to tell it. I try and read that every year. I do. I read it every Christmas. I've never seen it. Isn't that shocking? You haven't seen The Muppets? Not all of it. Not all the way through, no. And I believe Michael Caine is supposed to be marvellous. He is. He's wonderful. Yeah. Maybe I'll watch it this Christmas, but I think it's always Wizard of Oz.

29:03I mean, especially because when I was 16, I played the character and I grew up watching it. This is when I think they were still re-releasing it in the cinema, you know, before there were such things as videos, believe it or not. It used to take 30 years for a cinema film to get from the cinema onto television. Yeah. Unbelievable, isn't it? But I think the one that always fills my heart with joy, and I'm always amazed how many people particularly hard and old singers like me as well is the Mary Poppins oh yeah I mean it's like one of the great movies and Dick Van Dyke dancing and performance he's so good in it you forgive every wrong vowel of his cockney he's just he's a hundred isn't he he is he might be a hundred and he's still still tapping what a performer still looking for work and then very finally this is again the other question I ask everyone, do you have any unusual Christmas traditions in your house?

30:01So is there a particular bauble that has to be hung? Is there a particular kind of food, you know, beyond the obvious that you have to have every year? Is there a piece of music you need to listen to? What, you know, what do you do? We have lots of different ones. My husband and I are from different countries. So we have, we actually celebrate Christmas on Christmas. What I would call Christmas Eve is the big Christmas in Beirut. You know, it's when we have our big celebration. And then the next day we'll have, you know, the normal Christmas day. so a normal Christmas day to me anyway. He's from Lebanon, isn't he?