Estranged, This one will bring you down...

Springtime! Flowers in bloom. Love is in the air.  Feeling good?  Too bad, we can't have that.  If you keep being optimistic and happy, you'll lose your friends....hence 2015's "Estranged."  This film will chase all the happy feelings away.  A continuous downward spiral into creepiness and insanity is our feature today.  Directed by Adam Levins, and featuring the weirdest characters of the year, this is definitely not the feel good film of the millennium.

Okay, here goes....just a fraction of the plot to avoid spoilers.  January (Amy Manson) is involved in a horrible motorbike accident when her boyfriend, Callum (Simon Quarterman) crashes it into oncoming traffic in Brazil.  Her memory is gone and she needs to learn to walk again.  Callum brings her back to her estranged family in a run-down rural English estate.  Her "family" hasn't seen her in six years, when the free-spirit left the nest, shall we say.  The reunion is an awkward one, as she has no memory of them.  Ahhhh, but they remember her.  Lucky for them, she has no memories.

 Albert (James Cosmo) is her dad, a burly man who looks as if he strangles puppies.  Her mom (Eileen Nichols) is a loon.  Her brother Laurence (James Lance) is a perv.  Her sister Katherine (Nora-Jane Noone) would be cute if she wasn't deformed. But wait!  Are they really her family? The butler (Craig Conway) seems to have the answers but he is tight lipped.  Uh oh...Callum is missing and now January must convalesce with only the help of her weirdo kinfolk. As she puts two and two together, January realizes something isn't right, and her apparent family have something horrible in store for her.  Horrible may be an understatement...you'll see.

Are these weirdos really January's family?  Is January as whacked-out as they are?  Is this family unit just a provocative metaphor for the ever decreasing role of the nuclear family in this 21st century?  Again, be warned....this film is ominous and isn't afraid of the taboo.  Sure to bring rain, kill the flowers, and dampen frisky moods, "Estranged" is available on Netflix.