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Goodbye June review – Kate Winslet’s Christmas heartwarmer is like a two-hour John Lewis ad

Star turns from Helen Mirren, Andrea Riseborough and Toni Colette can’t stop cartoony sentimentality smothering this film directed by Winslet and written by her son Joe Anders

Kate Winslet’s feature directing debut is a family movie, scripted by her son Joe Anders; it’s a well-intentioned and starrily cast yuletide heartwarmer, like a two-hour John Lewis Christmas TV ad without the logo at the end. There are one or two nice lines and sharp moments but they are submerged in a treacly soup of sentimentality; in the end, I couldn’t get past the cartoony quasi-Richard Curtis characterisation and the weird not-quite-earthlingness of the people involved. Having said this, I am aware of having been first in the queue to denigrate Winslet’s Christmas film The Holiday, that is regarded by many as one of the most successful films of all time.

Helen Mirren is the June of the title, an affectionate but sharp-tongued matriarch who is diagnosed with terminal cancer in the run-up to Christmas, and her entire quarrelling clan will have to assemble in her hospital room. June, with a kind of benign cunning, realises that she can use her last days as a cathartic crisis that will cure her adult children’s unspoken hurt. They are a stressed careerist (Winslet), a stay-at-home mum (Andrea Riseborough), a hippy-dippy natural birth counsellor (Toni Collette) and a troubled soul (Johnny Flynn), plus all their various kids. There is also June’s daft old husband Bernie, played by Timothy Spall, who likes a drink and can’t talk about his feelings, and whose scatterbrained goofiness has a sad origin. Stephen Merchant plays Riseborough’s lovably useless husband and a gentle hospital nurse, played by Fisayo Akinade, is the ensemble’s self-effacing guide to a wiser future.

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© Photograph: Kimberley French/Netflix

© Photograph: Kimberley French/Netflix

© Photograph: Kimberley French/Netflix

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Germany drops promise to resettle hundreds of Afghans

Interior ministry will tell 640 people awaiting sanctuary ‘there is no longer any political interest in their being admitted’

Hundreds of Afghans previously promised sanctuary in Germany have been told they are no longer welcome, in a stark U-turn by the conservative chancellor, Friedrich Merz‪.

The 640 people in Pakistan awaiting resettlement – many of whom worked for the German military during the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan – will no longer be taken in, as Merz’s government axes two programmes introduced by its centre-left-led predecessor.

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© Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters

© Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters

© Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters

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Fifa urged to halt World Cup ticket sales after ‘monumental betrayal’ of fans

  • Prices five times more than 2022 Qatar World Cup

  • FA to confirm cost for England matches on Thursday

Fifa has been urged to halt World Cup ticket sales after it emerged countries’ most loyal fans faced paying “extortionate” prices for tickets, with the cheapest for the final coming in at more than £3,000.

The Croatian federation published details of prices in its participant member association (PMA) allocation, designed to be made available to fans who attend the most matches, with tickets at fixed rather than dynamic prices. It listed the cheapest tickets for the final on 19 July as costing $4,185 (£3,120, €3,563).

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© Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters

© Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters

© Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters

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