Film

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

Name: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike
Released: 2012
Cast: David Hyde Pierce, Kristine Nielsen, Sigourney Weaver, Billy Magnussen, Genevieve Angelson

A mordant comedy that transplants Chekhov's *Uncle Vanya* to contemporary upstate New York, where two middle-aged siblings languish on their family farm while their famous-actress sister breezes in with her much-younger boyfriend. It's wickedly smart, deeply melancholic beneath the jokes, and powered by ensemble acting of rare generosity—everyone gets their moment to break your heart.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love talky, wounded family comedy built on Chekhovian bones, where regret arrives with sharp one-liners and actors circle each other like they're trapped in a very good stage play.

Skip it if you want plot momentum or a film that opens beyond its rooms; this stays in one farmhouse, talks in circles, and its gloom can wear thin.

What it asks of you: Settle in for its two-plus hours; it unfolds slowly and mostly through talk, with comedy that lands only if you lean in and stay with its rhythms.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

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Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?1966

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Tiny Furniture2010

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Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Layover2017

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Succession2018

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But You'll need to commit to four seasons. By design, almost everyone in it is monstrous, which is thrilling but not always restful.

The Humans2021

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But Bleak to the bone and structurally experimental. If you want a conventional narrative arc, this will feel like it's frustrating you on purpose.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things2020

A couple visits his parents' farmhouse and the evening becomes recursive, dreamlike, claustrophobic. Brilliantly acted, visually daring, a masterclass in ambient dread and regret.

But It demands patience with ambiguity. Watching this film is less like being told a story and more like being slowly buried under one.

The Farewell2019

A Chinese-American family gathers to confront mortality without telling their dying grandmother the truth. Tender, absurd, and precise about how much love and resentment can live in the same room.

But Tonally it's a high-wire act—comedy and sadness in such close quarters that you might feel whiplashed instead of moved.

You Can't Take It with You1938

The Vanderhof family—eccentric, poor, blissfully unconcerned with respectability—welcomes a society girl into their chaotic home. It's a gentler play about class and family, but Capra's touch is unmistakable.

But The politics are dated and the sweetness is unironic. If you need your comedies bitter, this will feel naïve.

Dìdi (弟弟)2024

Both use dark comedy to sidestep sentimentality about aging parents and adult children. Same refusal to simplify the feeling into something cleanable.

A Korean-American filmmaker watches his mother spiral into dementia while he makes a documentary. It's devastatingly funny about caregiving, cultural disconnect, and the rage that hides inside love. Shot like a fever dream.

But It's formally fractured—mixing found footage, animation, documentary and fiction. If you want a linear story, the form will feel like it's getting in the way.

Enter the Void2010

Both are structured around a provincial home (or the memory of one) as a space where people confront who they are and who they wanted to be. Both are less interested in plot than in the weight of accumulation—years of small resentments and forgetting.

A neon-drenched Tokyo hallucinogenic trip that begins with a death and becomes a meditation on family, death, reincarnation and the pornography of memory. Visually unlike anything else; you'll feel it rather than follow it.

But It's 161 minutes of strobing light, repetitive music, and almost no conventional narrative. Many people find it unwatchable; those who don't are changed by it.