Mothers, daughters, and a cowboy escape
Mark your calendars: Park Avenue hits UK and Irish cinemas on 14 November, and early buzz is calling it one of the year’s most emotional gut-punches. Directed by Gaby Dellal (On a Clear Day, 3 Generations) and co-written with Tina Alexis Allen, the film stars Fiona Shaw (yes, Aunt Petunia herself, but nastier, louder, and way more magnetic), Katherine Waterston, and Chaske Spencer.
The story follows Charlotte (Waterston), a cattle-wrangling Canadian who flees her controlling husband in a Ford Bronco and shows up uninvited at her childhood Park Avenue apartment. Her mother Kit (Shaw) greets her with three casual words: “Am I dying?” What follows is six weeks of fraught reconnection, tangled love triangles (yes, mother and daughter are both obsessed with the same doorman, played by Spencer), and the kind of intergenerational fireworks that would make therapy bills skyrocket.
Fiona Shaw: giving it “full welly”
Critics at the Santa Barbara and Dublin International Film Festivals were already floored, with The Independent calling the film “very moving” and RTÉ Radio declaring Shaw’s Kit “one of the great characters in recent cinema”. Her performance has been described as “operatic”, the kind that makes Oscar chatter feel inevitable.
The cast is stacked with scene-stealers too: Tim Hutton, Phylicia Rashad, Didi Conn, Allison Mackay, and Mary Beth Peil round out the eccentric Park Avenue residents, while Oscar-winner Stephen Warbeck (Shakespeare in Love) scores the whole thing with a swell of emotion.
The New York love letter you didn’t know you needed
Writer-director Dellal describes Park Avenue as her “love letter” to the Upper East Side of old-school cinema. Think doormen with decades of loyalty, eclectic neighbours who know each other’s darkest secrets, and a city that feels like a character in its own right. But at its heart, it’s about that universal mess: daughters clashing with mothers until grief finally forces understanding.
As Dellal puts it: “Everyone has a mother… only in her death did I learn to accept and applaud her. And like my mother, Kit is never without her lippy.”
TL;DR
- Park Avenue releases in UK & Irish cinemas 14 November 2025.
- Stars Fiona Shaw, Katherine Waterston, and Chaske Spencer.
- A mother-daughter drama set in a Park Avenue apartment block full of eccentric characters.
- Early reviews rave about Shaw’s powerhouse performance.
- Directed by Gaby Dellal, score by Stephen Warbeck (Shakespeare in Love).
More info via parkavenuemovie.com.
We’ve got a lot to say about this one, from Shaw’s powerhouse performance to the way the film balances melodrama with tenderness. Our full review will be live soon.
Stay unruly.
