52 Films by Women Vol 10. 31. JIMPA (Director: Sophie Hyde)

Pictured: Jim (John Lithgow, centre) shares his history of protest with his 'grand-thing' Frances (Aud Mason-Hyde, right) while his daughter, Hannah (Olivia Colman, left) looks on in a scene from 'Jimpa', an Amsterdam-set anti-drama directed by Sophie Hyde. Still courtesy of CineartBE (Belgium)

‘Look at the person’s hand,’ Australian filmmaker Hannah (Olivia Colman) tells a group of students at the start of director Sophie Hyde’s fourth feature, Jimpa. ‘Don’t judge, describe.’ This is the approach Hannah intends to adopt in a film about her father, Jim (John Lithgow), who having fathered two daughters with his then wife came out as queer and went off to live in Amsterdam. According to the family story, Jim’s wife and children didn’t begrudge his epiphany and allowed him to leave without guilt where he was able to live with AIDS and promote gay rights. Jim’s wife didn’t remarry. The two daughters came out well adjusted. At the start of the film, Hannah’s child, Frances (Aud Mason-Hyde, the director’s child) has declared themselves non-binary. They are the head of their school’s LGBTQ+ society, socially accepted but sceptical about remaining in their country of birth. Frances accompanies their parents to visit Jim with the underlying plan of living with him, to settle into a more established gay-friendly society. Jim has recovered from a stroke and has plans of his own.

Hyde attempts to make that most radical of dramas, one without conflict, in order to memorialise her late father, on whom Jim is based, and to represent the non-binary. Watching the film, you are reminded of the hang-out dramas of Richard Linklater, driven by talk not action. This aesthetic choice has limited the commercial potential of the film, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in Utah in January 2025 and took a year to reach cinemas, though not in the UK where it went straight to streaming. The presence of Colman and Lithgow, two internationally-recognisable award-winning actors, didn’t help the film much.

Audiences might find it initially hard to relate to a film that suggests that there is such a thing as a non-traumatic family break-up. This tension plays out in the film’s present as Hannah and her husband, Harry (Daniel Henshall) refuse to object openly to their child’s choice. Neither wants to play the ‘bad cop’.  

For a while, we are happy to watch as Jim bequeaths Hannah his badge collection – he dug them out prior to the family’s arrival. Hannah immediately fears the worst, but the badges offer a potted social history of resistance and change; I would have liked to have spent more screen time with them. Badges are a way of declaring allegiance to a collective. The scene made me wonder what happened to my ‘ABC Minors’ badge, given to children who attended Saturday morning cinema in the 1970s.

Jim – the Jimpa of the title – has an assistant, Richard (Eamon Ferran) who collects Hannah and the family from the airport. We learn that he has little to do. Jim is not working on any new research. Jim has however applied for a job in Helsinki. He flies there to take a meeting where he is told that he is not in the running. A colleague whom he recommended will take the position.

Meanwhile Frances starts hanging out with Isa (Zoë Love Smith) and espousing a fondness for ‘compersion’, defined as ‘the feeling of joy or happiness caused by seeing someone you love experience happiness or romantic/sexual fulfilment with someone else’. This feels disingenuous, a way of saying, ‘I know I’m not going to be happy, so I’ll take pleasure in the happiness of others.’ I would suggest that Frances hasn’t lived much. At any rate, when they see Isa with someone else, they register jealousy. Pain isn’t something you can wish away, no matter how you phrase it.

Jim takes Frances out to meet his friends. The non-binary person is impressed. ‘My grand-thing has quite the vocabulary,’ Jim declares, reflecting on a generation that seems to be a lot better at defining itself, rolling their own pronouns where once one simply smoked marijuana. We also see Jim on the pull, naked below the waist. He had one significant other, Stephen (Deobia Oparei) but refused to be monogamous.

Meanwhile, Hannah’s producers, seen in a series of zoom calls, express their scepticism about her project, which she hasn’t mentioned to Jim. Avoiding conflict means never talking about the things that matter. The issue is forced when Jim (off-screen) has another stroke, losing the ability to communicate.

The final part of the film is a conventional tearjerker. The first time we see Jim in his debilitated state, answering questions by squeezing ‘yes’ or ‘no’ with his hand, we are moved. Hannah tells him about her project, but obtaining permission from a man in a weakened state seems wrong. Hannah comes across as a coward.

Jim’s illness also threatens Frances’ plans. However, there isn’t a scene in which they tell Jim what he means to them; you sense Hyde didn’t want to put her own child through that.

Hannah’s older sister, Emily (Kate Box) comes to visit to say goodbye to her father. She also puts Hannah straight, that, in fact, the family wanted to accompany Jim when he decided to migrate to Amsterdam, but Jim refused. The break-up of the family wasn’t as conflict-free as Hannah chose to believe. Nevertheless, Jim isn’t demonised as selfish.  Acceptance is the family’s default setting.

The problem with a film that purposely avoids drama is that it isn’t especially memorable. Hyde offers some home movie footage of the (fictional) family in younger days, but it doesn’t add much. There is an impactful flashback in which Frances presents themselves to their class, coming across as confident and smug but not clearly identified as part of a community. Frances doesn’t attract hate rather indifference, as if the class resent having to be lectured but don’t want to mention it. The producers of the film have positioned Jimpa as a teaching tool, a catalyst for discussion (evident on the film’s website). Many would have preferred catharsis.

Reviewed at Screen Three, LantarenVenster, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Monday 29 June 2026, 13:45 screening