a 30-year-old writer named David goes home to care for a parent who's dying of cancer before Christmas. I couldn't relate.

not necessarily a great movie (it's a bit sketchy in key places, and Bradley Whitford has a doozy of a line about "debating" his son's sexuality), but trust me when i say that it captures its subject with rare accuracy and nuance. eerie how the process is so indivisibly personal, and yet threaded with so many commonalities. uncanny, really. and while i didn't think the performances were necessarily anything special... other then how Jesse Plemons nails how it feels to say "it's fine. i mean, it's not fine. but it's fine" for 9 months... i don't know what to say to anyone who thinks they were overblown.