The Darkest Light

I just saw it at the Montreal Film Festival on a whim - I needed something to see in between two other movies so I had the time to kill. At first, I considered walking out because the film seemed like it was going to be terrible. A Yorkshire tale of a family whose child has cancer. Meanwhile, their new neighbors, a family of Indian neighbors, struggle to adjust to a somewhat (but not really) hostile environment. It aspired to be a Ken Loach or Mike Leigh film though with more of an after-school special style approach to narrative. I actually was tempted to walk out of it during the first half-hour, but once I stayed with it, it actually wasn't that awful. I was actually slightly moved by it. It's a low-key British Kitchen Sink-style domestic drama that takes an interesting second act turn for the better. Though the direction and editing was sometimes quite clumsy and amateurish, the cinematography (by a woman too which is a rarity!) was outstanding.