The Glass Castle

Woody Harrelson, Brie Larson and Naomi Watts play members of an anarchic family that refuses society's norms, in this moving and offbeat drama from the director of Short Term 12.

Woody Harrelson, Brie Larson and Naomi Watts play members of the eccentric, non-conformist family at the heart of Jeannette Walls' extraordinary memoir, adapted here by Destin Daniel Cretton, acclaimed director of Short Term 12. With Woody Harrelson's Rex as the wild-eyed paterfamilias, the Walls family are short on cash and material good, but big on dreams and ideas. With daughter Jeanette (Larson) now grown up and living a much more conventional life, she looks back on an itinerant, restless childhood which saw the family flit from state to state and scheme to scheme. But their unashamedly liberal lifestyle, in which money and security are secondary considerations and children are encourage to make mistakes, results in rising tensions and disputes that are not easily overcome.

Anyone familair with Cretton's previous feature, Short Term 12, will be aware of the director's flair for controling emotions and eliticiting fine performances. Here, working on a bigger canvas, and with a more seasoned cast, he proves himself to be a considerable talent, deftly balancing the story's anarchic edge with moving and memorable sense of humanity.