Goldfish

Koechlin, as the daughter struggling with past resentments and present preoccupations (she has a partner whom she keeps at bay while she is dealing with her mother’s situation; she also has a great job waiting for her in another country), is excellent. The unravelling of the rocky, tempestuous relationship between the duo gives the film its heft as we discover Sadhana was never a cuddly, cosy mother to Miku: maybe she never really wanted to be a mother. How do you deal with scars of your own while being confronted by a woman you may never have had any maternal instincts? Can you abandon her, just the way you have felt abandoned? Can that ever be a solution? Goldfish, essentially a thought-provoking two-hander between its lead actresses, leaves us with these thorny questions, and the welcome possibility of redemption.