Sophie Hyde and John Lithgow backstage during the premiere of “Jimpa.” (Photo by George Pimentel / Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)
By Bailey Pennick
Sophie Hyde is waiting in the wings of a buzzing Eccles Theatre with a calm, warm smile as Jimpa is being introduced for the first time. When she walks out into the light, the crowd erupts with applause. This is Hyde’s fourth time premiering a film at the Sundance Film Festival — her third time in Park City because Good Luck to You, Leo Grande premiered online in 2022 — and she immediately centers the audience with a sweeping and poignant land acknowledgment. “I feel like my ancestors want me here,” the writer-director says, looking out to the packed house. “I think of all your ancestors, having us be here together to be excited about film, watching this movie about family together.”
As the film is about to start, Hyde leaves her audience with a call to action: “We have to be tender with each other until it becomes a habit.” It sounds simple, but, as seen throughout the story of a family continuing to choose each other in the face of old wounds, generational gaps, and heartbreak, being tender is hard work. This internal struggle is instantly felt through Olivia Colman’s excellent, nuanced performance as Hannah opposite John Lithgow’s spirited embodiment of a fictionalized version of Hyde’s own father.
“I feel like there haven’t been enough movies about the beauty and agony of being in love,” says Lithgow during the post-premiere Q&A. He grins from ear to ear before shouting: “And now I’m in one!” The beauty Lithgow refers to comes in the form of Jimpa’s family — biological and chosen community — coming together to care for him as his health declines, and when Frances — Hannah’s nonbinary teen played by Hyde’s own child Aud Mason-Hyde — opens themselves up to new physical and emotional experiences with a polyamorous girl who strongly believes in enthusiastic consent.
The agony of being in love, on the other hand, is where Jimpa and Colman, in particular, shine. Hannah’s deep pain at her father leaving the family when she was young is constantly being minimized by her own understanding of Jimpa’s life choices and her love of who he is as a person. As Frances continues to idolize their grandfather, Hannah wrestles with her own desire to protect her child from disappointment as well as protect her father’s larger-than-life image. Nothing is neat, just like real love.
Hyde is clear to the audience as well as her actors that while it is deeply personal and semi-autobiographical, Jimpa is a fictional story. However, that doesn’t mean that the filmmaker didn’t learn more about herself and her family in the process. “Aud has told me a lot of things [about their life], and I could truly listen because of the choices my parents made.” We are all a collection of choices, so why not choose love?
