Based on Leah Hager Cohen’s critically-acclaimed novel, The Grief of Others, written and directed by Patrick Wang (In The Family, A Bread Factory), premiered at SXSW and screened at the Cannes Film Fest.
The Ryries have suffered a loss, the death of a baby just 57 hours after his birth. The parents, John (Trevor St. John) and Ricky (Wendy Moniz), try to return to their previous lives. Then, the couple’s children, ten-year-old Biscuit (Oona Laurence) and thirteen-year-old Paul (Jeremy Shinder), responding to the unnamed tensions around them, begin to act out in strange, idiosyncratic ways.
As the family members scatter into private and isolating grief, an unexpected visitor arrives. As a result, they find themselves growing more alert to the hurt, humor, warmth, and burdens of others–to the grief that is part of every human life but that also carries within it the power to draw us together.