Robert Harmon (John Cassavetes) is an ageing writer whose success has afforded him a playboy lifestyle in the Hollywood Hills, but the extent of his alcoholic dissolution is brought into sharp focus when he is faced with looking after his estranged young son for the weekend. Meanwhile his sister Sarah (Gena Rowlands) is herself in the midst of a messy divorce and custody battle, and similarly finds herself undergoing a crisis of identity. When she too arrives at Robert's doorstep, they both sense a means by which to rediscover not only each other but themselves too.

His final screen collaboration with his wife and muse, and made in the wake of the news that he was terminally ill, Cassavetes' last major film as a director stands as both a summation of his body of work and a bittersweet reflection on his own life. As ever, it is a showcase for his generosity towards his actors, and alongside A Woman Under the Influence and Opening Night is one of his most unflinching examinations of human frailties and the need to be loved. But in other ways it is atypical: his famously fastidious commitment to sombre realism sometimes punctured by flights of surreal fantasy and moments of near-slapstick humour, perhaps pointing towards the kind of serenity which so often eluded his characters.

Even if a screening is sold out, tickets are often available 30 minutes before the start of the film at the box office.