Private Life

Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) is an author who's been trying for years to have a baby with her husband Richard (Paul Giamatti). Nothing is working and emotions are running high after several failed attempts. When Richard's sort of niece Sadie (Kayli Carter) comes to live with them other ideas start running through their heads.

It's starting to happen. It's slow going but it's getting there. Netflix original movies are starting to be good. Some are excellent. It took a while, a lot of false starts and some outright fucking duds but we're at a place were watching a Netflix original doesn't fill you with dread anymore. In the last few months we've had Set It Up, Calibre, The Most Hated Woman In America, Cargo, First Match, Ali's Wedding and a few weeks ago - Hold The Dark. All good, solid, entertaining films that I'd have been happy to pay to have seen in the cinema. Netflix seems to be filling a niche with films that don't get to the cinema anymore. Romcoms, dramas aimed at adults, stuff that will genuinely make you think and films with minority casts. It's great to see. Long may it continue. Private Life is the latest such original available to stream. It's really good.

This is a film that will hit you in the heart. A story about characters who feel like real people dealing with problems that afflict people we all know everyday. A film about the absolution frustration caused by the arbitrary cruelty of nature and how that frustration ends with anger being directed at the ones you love. How life's constant ups and downs can pull people apart or push them together. Writer/director Tamara Jenkins rubs our faces in it all. No emotion is hidden from us. At times you'll hate the people onscreen for their selfishness or the caustic things they say to each other but it all comes from an understandable place. Then each time something fails for them or another avenue falls through your heart will break a little for them too. Two people just wanting to start a family and ripping themselves apart in the process.

It all sounds bleak as hell and yes a lot of the film walks along an edge of devastation is but there's enough shards of humour sticking through to keep you going. Most of them built around Giamatti's hangdog expression as yet another thing disappoints him. His reaction to a manky porn video in a fertility clinic, his incredulous horror as Rachel once again discloses a physical issue of his to people who don't need to know, the look on his face during a Mountain dew comparison. He's not quite in Sideways territory but it's the same kind of performance, where you feel terrible for him while wanting to kick him at the same thing for his lack of consideration towards others.

Hahn plays the same kind of part but exposes herself (literally in a scene with echoes of Julianne Moore in Short Cuts) a lot more than Giamatti. Her rage and sorrow is palpable and a moment of her lashing out on the street is properly upsetting. I only know her from her comedic work and she blew me away here. You mightn't like her at times but you still want to see good things happen for her. Kayli Carter as Sadie is kind of wonderful too. Mid 20's, stunted by arrested development, ultra impulsive, too honest and the centre of a dinner party moment which will have you watching from behind your fingers because it just feels too......aahhhh someone kill me now please.Her exuberance and youth strike other chords with Rachel and Richard too. Are they too old for kids? How did they get to this point in their lives? The kind of questions that might lead to an existential middle age crisis for both characters and audience.

An honest, lovely, sad film about real people with real problems. It might strike too close to home for some but it's so worth a watch. Plus it contains the best final shot of the year, one that can be construed in a number of ways depending on the kind of person you are. This is Tamara Jenkins first film in 11 years. I hope we don't have to wait that long for the next one.

Available to watch on Netflix now.