Flight

Strong (Want, Hold Still) reveals the effects of grief and long-held resentments on three siblings as they spend a first Christmas together after their mother’s passing. Judging themselves, each other, and each other’s children, the siblings and their spouses ruminate about life’s disappointments, which seem particularly sharp this year. Andi Arndt deftly narrates each as they reminisce, distinguishing personality through inflection and tone. When sister-in-law Alice’s social work client Quinn calls in crisis—her daughter Maddie is missing—the family launches a search. Quinn and Maddie’s lonely Christmas, under threat of separation by CPS if anyone reported that Quinn was still using and had lost Maddie, contrasts starkly with the holiday gathering. Arndt ramps up the emotional volatility as Maddie’s disappearance strains already-tense relationships, all the while voicing Quinn with a youthful resignation that highlights how much harder she’s had it. Strong never condemns her characters’ yearning for fulfillment or experiencing loss while others have less, though their healing only begins when they remember their mother’s generosity and help as she would have.