A great cast can paper over a lot of issues. Watching talented actors and actresses at work is part of the main charm of the gift that is cinema. However, even the best thespians can’t make up for a script that just doesn’t give them much to do. Likewise with bland direction. Despite an A-list cast, the remake Blackbird is thoroughly mediocre, wasting the performers at its center. Aside from occasional sparks of livelihood, credited to the ladies and gentlemen on the screen, there’s not a whole lot to grab on to. The film just sort of lays there, never coming to life in the way one would hope for. The movie is a family drama, remade from the 2014 Danish effort Silent Heart. Lily (Susan Sarandon) and Paul (Sam Neill) clearly have a loving relationship, though one taking on a new dimension due to Lily’s terminal illness. No longer willing to continue her long battle with ALS, the couple summons their family to their beach house to say goodbye. Wanting her children and their loved ones to surround her for a weekend, all should be tender. However, while the plan is to have a loving weekend, complete with a number of final holiday traditions, the mood becomes strained. Not only do daughters Jennifer (Kate Winslet) and Anna (Mia Wasikowska) have issues with each other, unresolved problems once again surface between each of them and Lily, herself. With time running out, can they all work out their differences and support the matriarch’s decision to end her life with dignity? Roger Michell directs a screenplay by Christian Torpe, with cinematography from Mike Eley, as well as a score by Peter Gregson. Supporting players here include Lindsay Duncan and Rainn Wilson, as well as Anson Boon and Bex Taylor-Klaus. When you see who is in this film, you’re not wrong to expect better. Any flick with a cast that includes Susan Sarandon, Mia Wasikowska, and Kate Winslet should keep your attention in a more thorough way. Likewise other cast members like Sam Neill and Rainn Wilson, all of whom could shine with better material. Here, however, the writing is middling and the drama is overly forced, so you constantly wind up seeing the strings being pulled. A dinner scene involving the passing of a joint is one of the only moments that doesn’t seem overly contrived. Then, when the third act plot […]