We read to find life, in all its possibilities.

“If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble.

“For heaven’s sake, what kind of question is that?” Messud responded. The film is streaming on Hulu.In a 2013 exchange that’s become famous in literary circles, the novelist Claire Messud took to task an interviewer at Publishers Weekly who observed that she - the interviewer - wouldn’t want to be friends with the protagonist of Messud’s most recent novel and asked if Messud herself felt the same way. The two principle characters played by Alison Pill and Sarah Gadon were excellent. This film is steeped in sadness and literary references. She wanted everyone to just get on with living. The family matriarch, played beautifully by Mare Winningham, was practical and stoic. To me, the message was, it wasn’t their fault. But none of it, not pharmaceuticals, not talk therapy, not love, could penetrate the depression ruling their brains.įor all the guilt and pain remaining family members may have felt, they did everything possible and it wasn’t effective. My feelings after watching the film were that these depressed people were loved, cared for, and acclaimed. Yoli disagrees with the psychiatrist when he releases Elf from the hospital with medications and her promise to do better. The sisters are together for several important scenes. Soon Yoli receives a call from her mother (Mare Winningham) that Elf has tried to kill herself. Her face is a drawn and wooden mask of depression. Yoli’s sister, Elf ( Sarah Gadon), is a highly regarded concert pianist. She’s grieving for her father and is blocked as writer. We meet his daughter Yoli (Alison Pill) who is dealing with a divorce and a teenager (Amybeth McNulty) as she struggles to write a new novel. When the film opens we watch the father of this family (Donal Logue) step directly in front of a train. The title of the film is from a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The characters know and frequently quote long passages by poets and writers. The dialog is lyrical, literary – like reading a literary novel. It was written and directed by Michael McGowan. A Mennonite family struggles through huge losses that they are unable to stop.Īll My Puny Sorrows is based on a novel by Miriam Toews. All My Puny Sorrows is a sad tale of depression and suicide.

All my puny sorrows by miriam toews