Toni Collette is great in this family drama with quite a few gruesome twists! She is "Annie" who is mourning the recent death of her over-bearing mother. Except, as we discover when she goes to one of those bereavement groups, we discover that they were estranged and hadn't spoken for ages. Shortly after the funeral, husband "Steve" (Gabriel Byrne) is made aware of some unsavoury developments and then an even greater tragedy ensues that brings to an end years of bubbling resentment between her and teenage son "Peter" (Alex Wolff). Still struggling to comes to terms with things and with her family teetering on the bring of collapse, she is approached by "Joan" (Ann Dowd) who has recently suffered a tragedy of her own and who offers a means to communicate with the other world. Of course, "Annie" is disdainful of this proposal but glasses move, candles blow out and soon she is trying to convince her own sceptical family that they can all chat to the dead! There's the odd bit of ceiling-crawling and a few visual effects to make us jump a little, but for the most part this is a compelling two-hander between Collette and an equally on-form Wolff and both convey well the accumulating fears faced by both as they try to come to terms with a scenario that is being fuelled by something no longer of this world - and one that poor old "Steve" is more and more at a loss to know how to cope with. The last fifteen minutes brings in a few hitherto unrevealed threads but rather than frustrate, they prove to be quite clever at knitting the story together. It's a slow burn but builds well as it systematically destabilises the characters of just about everyone involved!
