Television commercial director Christine Jeffs makes her feature debut with this intense family drama about the collapse of a marriage and the dissolution of a mother-daughter relationship. Thirteen-year-old Janey (Alicia Fulford-Wierzbicki) and her younger brother Jim (Aaron Murphy) are largely left alone in their seaside bungalow as their parents try to piece their marriage back together. While Janey's mom Kate (Sarah Peirse) gets blind drunk, flirts with other men, and nurses hangovers, her father Ed recoils in disgust at his wife's dissolute behavior. The family's simmering tensions explode with the appearance of Cady, a rakish freelance photographer. While Kate immediately starts to flirt with the younger man, Janey herself is attracted to him, believing that he is her only ticket out of her dysfunctional family. Soon Kate and Janey find themselves locked in a desperate and despairing battle for Cady. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival.
~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide