Midwinter Break Film Review: Marital Schism

Polly Findlay’s Midwinter Break highlights the extraordinary talents of Lesley Manville and Ciarán Hinds, but doesn’t do much more.

Through the years, Stella and Gerry’s relationship has significantly changed. While Stella takes pride in her devotion to Catholicism, Gerry has a torrid relationship with religion and a drinking problem Stella can no longer ignore. Even though nothing seems objectively wrong with their marriage on the outside, the two have not been a partnership for a long time. Stella looks after Gerry as a caretaker more than anything, and Gerry seems content with leaving his life in her hands without any form of input or attempt at teamwork. 

As Christmas approaches, Stella decides to plan a trip for the two of them to visit Amsterdam in an attempt to liven up their stagnant marriage. While the trip starts off as any normal couple’s vacation might, Stella confesses to Gerry that she has an ulterior motivation for booking this trip linked to the trauma she endured in Belfast all those years ago. 

Lesley Manville and Ciarán Hinds embody Stella and Gerry with an unbelievable ease. Their performances are the lifeblood of this film that relies so heavily on the believability of their relationship and the complex, nuanced events that have led their lives down this particular path. However, their powerful performances aren’t enough for the film to successfully analyze the complex emotional questions it poses. 

Ultimately, the film suffers under the density of its plot and the limitations of its runtime. The story in Midwinter Break is nuanced, but the film doesn’t allocate enough resources to fully unpack the depth of its story. It’s frustrating that the film feels like it’s on the cusp of being impactful, but for some reason never fully dives into the political, religious, or social questions it poses with any satiating follow-through. 

Midwinter Break feels exceptionally unbalanced in this sense. It doesn’t seem like it knows where to focus its efforts as it tackles the events of the novel with an uneven and meandering sense of importance. It relies too heavily on the audience having a preexisting understanding of The Troubles in Ireland to fully comprehend its commentary on identity and root its conversations surrounding religion. With those ideals being the driving message of the film, the historical context of this moment in time deserved to be explored in further depth rather than left to the audience to connect the dots on. 

Not providing context on The Troubles doesn’t make the story impossible to understand, but it is harder to comprehend the fragmentation and traumatic impact it’s had both in their marriage and their own internal struggles that are supposed to be at the core of the film. Rather than give time to this, the film indulges in many moments that, in truth, don’t particularly add much to the plot or our understanding of Stella and Gerry as a couple. 

While Midwinter Break is not an unenjoyable watch, due to the spectacular performances from Manville and Hinds, it doesn’t quite know what type of film it wants to be. The struggles Stella and Gerry are facing at this point in their life and in their marriage are understandably too complex to be solved by the end of the film’s runtime, but as much as they talk about their personal and relationship-based issues with one another, there isn’t a real sense that the film knows what deserved to be the focal struggle to root the film in. Rather than honing in on a core aspect of their marriage or personal dilemmas, it spread varying weight to every aspect of their marital strife in a way that made the film feel ultimately unfocused.

Midwinter Break will be released in US theatres on February 20, 2026 and in UK & Irish cinemas on March 20.