Landline (2017)

Landline is special because it turns a familiar family crisis into something vividly human, funny in the way real life is funny, and quietly bruising in the moments that count. Gillian Robespierre captures mid-’90s Manhattan with a lived-in warmth—landlines, cramped apartments, and all—and then lets the Jacobs women ricochet through it with sharp dialogue and even sharper feelings. Jenny Slate, Abby Quinn, and Edie Falco share the kind of chemistry that makes you believe in the messy intimacy of sisters and mothers, where love and disappointment can sit in the same room without explanation. It’s not a tidy comfort watch—this is an R-rated dramedy that goes candid on sex, language, and drugs—but if you’re on the fence, it rewards you with performances and emotional honesty that linger like a late-night conversation you didn’t know you needed.

Landline is aiming for a messy, humane 1990s family dramedy about infidelity, sisterhood, and the quiet ways people disappoint each other, and you can feel Gillian Robespierre reaching for lived-in authenticity over big plot fireworks. The problem is it often plays like a collection of recognizable dysfunction beats rather than a story that builds real momentum, so the pacing can feel inert and the comedy lands only in patches. If you want sharp satire, high-stakes drama, or a tightly engineered narrative, this may test your patience. Still, there’s a grounded warmth to the performances (especially the sister dynamic) that can make it worthwhile if you’re in the mood for low-key, talky realism and don’t mind the heavy R-rated sexual content, language, and drug use.