NPR

A Family In Quiet Crisis Gathers To Assess 'What They Had' — And What They've Still Got

In her debut feature, writer/director Elizabeth Chomko brings fresh insight — and a stellar cast — to the "dysfunctional family" subgenre; the result is "funny and sad, but never mawkish."
Ruth (Blythe Danner) and Bridget (Hilary Swank) share a moment in writer/director Elizabeth Chomko's intimate family drama, <em>What They Had</em>.

'Tis the season, in movie-world, to run the family-dysfunction tape on a loop. If you tire easily of snickering variants on , let me recommend , a finely textured family drama deceptively wrapped in that overworked subgenre. I doubt writer-director Elizabeth Chomko even thought of building her impressive debut feature around the reductive term "dysfunction," a noxiously bullying word that

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