Midwinter Break

2026

Drama

2
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 43% · 40 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 43% · 50 ratings
IMDb Rating 5.9/10 10 363 363

based on novel or book amsterdam, netherlands

Plot summary

Longtime retired couple Stella and Gerry realise that their relationship has reached a crossroads while on holiday in Amsterdam. After so much time and so many memories, long-held promises and deeply concealed wounds threaten to come to light and force them to confront their future.

Director

Polly Findlay Photo
Polly Findlay

Top cast

Ciarán Hinds Photo
Ciarán Hinds as Gerry
Lesley Manville Photo
Lesley Manville as Stella
Niamh Cusack Photo
Niamh Cusack as Kathy
Julie Lamberton Photo
Julie Lamberton as Young Stella
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
835.17 MB
1280*694
English 2.0
PG-13
Subtitles us   fr  
23.976 fps
1 hr 30 min
Seeds 66
1.67 GB
1920*1040
English 5.1
PG-13
Subtitles us   fr  
23.976 fps
1 hr 30 min
Seeds 100

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by 6 / 10

Asks a lot from its audience

I was excited about seeing this movie because I am a long-time fan of the two leading players. I saw Ciaran Hinds's sensational New York stage debut in 1999 in a play called CLOSER (which also featured Natasha Richardson, Rupert Graves, and Anna Friel). I knew that he was going to be a star and have been proven right on that one. I've followed Lesley Manville's career since her Oscar-nominated turn in 2017's THE PHANTOM THREAD. They are both wonderful in this film. Manville has the showier role here as an older woman searching for meaning in her life. She gives a subtle and underplayed performance that is heartbreaking. This is especially impressive when compared to her ferocious performance in QUEER. The movie itself is a slight disappointment. It is rather plodding in its quiet revelations of deep anguish beneath the surface of what seems like a happy relationship. Nothing much really HAPPENS. It's more of a character study than a plot-driven vehicle. It is definitely a moving film if you can stay with it, but I fear that most audiences will tune out early. The "story" is that the woman surprises her husband by booking a brief vacation in Amsterdam (which really is not very far away from Edinburgh, where the couple lives) for a Christmas present. One reason she's interested in going there is because she is secretly interested in joining an order of secular nuns there (She is a Catholic). She had a profound religious experience when she was younger. She was pregnant and was hit by a terrorist bullet in Belfast. She promised God that if her would spare her unborn baby that she would devote her life to serving God. Her son lived and grew up to give them grandchildren. She feels that she has not fulfilled her obligation. Her husband does not want them to break apart. How this issue is resolved is the crux of the movie. It's hard to make a film about internal issues. This is a noble attempt and I hand the filmmakers kudos for even trying. This movie asks for a lot of concentration from the audience. I respected it more than liked it.
Reviewed by

A small drama especially made for married couples.

As one of our most durable institutions, marriage is also one of humanity's most fragile. At around a 50 % failure rate, it is vulnerable to the vagaries of boredom and infidelity most of all.The former is the province of director Polly Findley's Midwinter Break, a slight drama about longtime married couple, Stella (Lesley Manville) and Gerry (Cirian Hinds), who take a break to Amsterdam and find their marriage challenged not as the freewheeling world-class city, but as their own frailties endanger its existence.Adapted from Bernard MacLaverty novel, the tale tells of Stella's questioning her status as a wife and mother with nothing left to give, and he is an overweight, retired architect drinking too much and giving her too little satisfaction. Amsterdam does offer her a chance in the form of a former religious house catering to just such unhappy women.Even though the place no longer houses these women, the truth is that no amount of religiosity will do for them what they themselves must do. While Stella and Gerry eventually must face their weaknesses themselves, they do so in an airport lounge, a fitting symbol of transition into the later part of their life.Most married couples face the fact that passion has ebbed and even grandchildren can't supply the comfort a spouse should. For Stella and Gerry, her need to find purpose and his to slide back his drinking and apathy provide a template for survival, giving us a low-key drama not solvable in a brief drama suggestive of a roadmap to success as they hold hands into the future.Midwinter Break is a pleasure as director Polly Findley makes even the silence between the couple meaningful especially for an audience that appreciates longtime silences holding importance like conversation between best friends.Although in this drama there is little "drama" by contemporary blockbuster standards, it is full of meaning that will resonate for married couples looking forward.
Reviewed by 5 / 10

A unique character study that struggles with pacing and narrative substance

My wife and I caught a screening of the Dutch film ?? Midwinter Break (2026). The story follows an aging couple coming to terms with the emotional voids in their lives that were never fully addressed. The wife feels a religious calling she never pursued, while the husband struggles with self-worth and numbs it with alcohol. As they begin pulling in different directions, the question becomes whether their marriage can survive the shift.The film is directed by Polly Findlay (Treasure Island) and stars Lesley Manville (Let Him Go) and Ciarán Hinds (The Rite).The movie is extremely slow and dry. The writing is very bland and straightforward. That said, the acting is elite, and the nonverbal communication between the characters is exceptionally well executed. Manville and Hinds play off each other perfectly - their facial expressions and body language make their inner turmoil constantly visible.There were a few sequences I genuinely enjoyed: the cake conversation, the intimate scene, the Anne Frank museum sequence, and the flashbacks to their life-altering moments were all strong. The drinking throughout the film is intense. However, the pacing drags significantly, with long stretches between meaningful developments. Some scenes felt underdeveloped - the Red Light District night could have gone further, the bar sequence involving the architectural/model conversation didn't land as powerfully as intended, and the underlying reason for the vacation felt somewhat undermining. Even the cinematography during Hinds' most dramatic close-ups occasionally felt slightly off.In conclusion, Midwinter Break is a unique character study that struggles with pacing and narrative substance. I'd rate it a 5/10.
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