As with last year’s LFF entry of Hamnet which tugged at people’s heartstrings as viscerally as Jessie Buckley’s scream over Jacobi Jupe’s Hamnet, A Long Winter is a surefire companion piece for 2026. Based on a short story by Colm Tóibín, and directed by Andrew Haigh, known for his last phenomenal piece All Of Us Strangers, this film helps encapsulate grief not in terms of its suddenness, but its inevitability.
Set in the 1950s at the onset of the Korean War, the film follows Mike (Fred Hechinger), who lives in the mountains of Colorado with his parents Lester (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Louise (Caitríona Balfe), and younger brother Tommy (Heartstopper’s Kit Connor). However, his brother’s draft into the war triggers a series of events that lead to Louise taking off on the day a heavy blizzard blankets the region. In the aftermath, Mike is forced to acknowledge and process the beckoning fissures of reality underneath the normalcy perpetuated within his family. In some ways, this process is double-handed, as evident with the grief and weighing the physical and emotional odds of his mother returning after the so-called long winter, as well as his transition into adulthood with the increased presence of his father and to a certain extent, his sexuality, the latter that unfortunately isn’t given enough weight within the narrative.
One of A Long Winter’s greatest strengths is an ensemble cast with iconic television roles, be it The White Lotus (Hechinger), to The Bear (Moss-Bachrach), to Outlander (Balfe), and a brief appearance by Martin Freeman, who gives strong performances with tender vulnerability no matter the amount of screentime. However, Hechinger and Balfe are the frontrunners of this film, where grief is magnified and examined in their characters’ bond that perseveres throughout. Another central hook is André Turpin’s cinematography that gives the essence of still portraits coming alive and the soundtrack that heightens the period setting and complements the scene it underscores.
It is safe to say that A Long Winter will tug at your heartstrings and stay with you even when the credits roll, an incredible feat accomplished by Haigh once again.
A Long Winter screened at the London Film Festival and will be in UK and Irish cinemas on 15 January 2027.
