MOTHER, COUCH

An all-star cast of troubled middle-aged siblings – Ewan McGregor, Rhys Ifans and Lara Flynn Boyle – converge on a furniture store where their mother, played by a superbly irascible Ellen Burstyn, refuses to get off a green display couch. Younger son David (McGregor) habitually takes responsibility for her, but he is crumbling under pressure; elder son Gruffudd (Ifans) is primarily focused on making a grotesque play for the sweet young store assistant (Taylor Russell) and chain-smoking daughter Linda (Boyle) clearly can’t be bothered with any of them. From this starting point in recognisable family dysfunction, Larsson’s film gathers speed as it heads towards a wildly surreal finale nobody – least of all this muddled family – could have expected.