Herself

A casually commanding Irish social drama that's directed with assurance by Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia!), Herself finds hope in one woman's fight for her family amid the Dublin housing crisis. When Sandra (Clare Dunne, who co-writes) flees her violent husband (Ian Lloyd Anderson) with her daughters (utterly natural Molly McCann and Ruby Rose O'Hara), the lack of housing means they're relocated to an airport hotel. Determined to build her family a new home, Sandra gets to work in the back garden of an injured doctor (Harriet Walter), who offers her plot of land for the house-building project. Recalling the verité style of 2018's Rosie (which saw an evicted Dublin family living in a car), this is an inspiring tale in which planning permission and health-and-safety issues provide all-too-real hurdles amid the domestic drama. Meanwhile, a key moment comes at a custody hearing where a female magistrate asks Sandra why she didn't leave her husband sooner, to which the defiant survivor retorts, "Ask better questions."