"Miss You, Love You" Explores Grief and Unlikely Connection

In Miss You, Love You, a grieving widow is joined by her estranged son’s assistant in the lead-up to her husband’s funeral. Over the course of the week they live together, Diane and Jaime come to know each other intimately, sharing secrets that they would not in any other situation. The film, which debuted on HBO last week, tells a story of grief, anger, and forgiveness.

Grief is a tricky thing to grab ahold of, and Diane (played by Allison Janney) grapples with it in a variety of ways. She is mourning her husband, but in doing so she also has to cope with her son not coming home for the funeral, a stranger’s personality quirks, and existing in a small town where she doesn’t have any close friends. Throughout Miss You, Love You, Diane is in a complicated emotional state, and Jamie (Andrew Rannells) is forced to endure her rapid mood swings.

Janney does a fantastic job of depicting Diane as a grieving widow and mother while honoring her interiority. She’s funny and talented and sharp. Diane is a person that is nearly impossible to get to know, but deeply loyal to anyone that can crack her shell. We’ve come a long way in recent years with the depiction of women over 50 on screen, and this film is proof of that. Women’s lives don’t end after they become mothers; their self-esteem and personalities are still just as important as ever.

Miss You, Love You made the fantastic choice to keep the cast as tight as possible. Diane’s son, Tyler, is central to the plot, but he is never featured on screen. We don’t know what he looks like or sounds like, yet his presence is known. Tyler is a looming concept more than a person. He’s the reason these two people are in the same room, and the reason for so much of their collective strife. By not giving him a physicality, he is created solely through the descriptions Diane and Jamie give him. At times he is a gay casanova with a revolving door of men, at others a successful author, a failed son, or a careless friend. His presence becomes all-consuming to the audience in the same way it is in the lives of our main characters.

While Diane is going through one of the greatest griefs of her life, Jamie is going through a change of his own. His story comes out slowly over the course of the 97 minute film. Even from the start, though, it’s clear that his relationship with Diane’s son is more than just that of a boss and an assistant. Both men are openly gay, and Jamie’s expression of love for Diane’s son feels loaded. There’s no rush towards a big reveal, but there’s also no effort to disguise it. Each interaction feels authentic to the characters and the story director Jim Rash is trying to tell.

Just as Diane is a complex character, Jamie, too, is more than meets the eye. For fans of Rannells in Girls, this was certainly a part that highlighted his skill as an actor. Jamie shares that he came out late-in-life, and that’s a clear source of regret he still harbors. He wants things in his life (and with Tyler) to have been different. In that way, he and Diane are the same, both looking back and wondering if their relationship with Tyler could have been different.

The chemistry between Diane and Jamie is palpable. Every second of it feels real. They go back and forth between antagonizing each other and bringing comfort, balancing each other’s weak points and pushing back on their defenses. Miss You, Love You brings together two people who were meant to find each other at that moment in their lives. Despite all of the sadness, it’s comforting to watch their relationship form and strengthen through conflict. If you’re looking to watch a movie that packs an emotional punch and still manages to make you laugh this weekend, Miss You, Love You is the film for you.