JIMPA

THREE STARS Frances and her filmaking parents travel to Amsterdam to bond with her gay, activist grandfather.

DRAMA AUSTRALIA English #JIMPA Starring Olivia Colman, John Lithgow

If Sophie Hyde’s JIMPA were a person it would arrive at a dinner party with good intentions, a great bottle of red and a mostly charming tendency to over-explain itself. After the startling formal invention of 52 TUESDAYS, Hyde’s compelling, time-bound study of a transitioning parent and their teenage child, her latest is decidedly more conventional fare. The storytelling is more direct, the emotional beats more familiar. But conventional doesn’t mean disengaging, and JIMPA proves warm, witty and comforting company.

Hannah (Olivia Colman) is an Australian filmmaker who, with her non-binary teenager Frances, travels to Amsterdam to visit her estranged father “Jimpa” (John Lithgow). He’s an ageing gay activist who never quite left the radical politics of the 1970s behind. His family? Well, that’s a different story. 

Frances, drawn to Jimpa’s bohemian world of bicycles, protests and canal-side philosophy, announces a desire to stay on in Europe for a year. What begins as a family visit gently morphs into a generational standoff: a mother worried about stability and schooling; a teenager certain of their identity and autonomy; and a grandfather who champions freedom but may not be as attuned to the practicalities as he thinks.

Hyde’s film feels, unmistakably, auto- and biographical. Frances is played by the director’s own child, and the film’s exploration of non-binary identity, not as crisis but as lived reality, carries an intimacy that rarely feels manufactured. There’s no melodramatic revelation here; gender is part of the texture of family life, discussed, debated and occasionally weaponised in the way families do best.

In fact, the lack of big drama is one of the movie’s core themes. Hannah is working on a story that actively avoids conflict much to the confusion of everyone she’s hoping to interest in her film. How do you tell (or sell) a story without conflict? Is it even possible? Hannah thinks so, her husband’s not sure though Jimpa is. It isn’t, thus setting up a meta-debate that brings the principle of activism - and Jimpa’s life choices - full circle.

Hyde brings a creative flourish to revealing the family's history that helps open out the relative intensity of the drama underway in Jimpa's living room. It serves the story well, giving it both added colour and texture without overwhelming the narrative through-line.

In the title role, Lithgow is excellent and gives his character both theatrical flourish and genuine vulnerability. He avoids caricature while letting flashes of ego and selfishness to peek through the charm. Colman, meanwhile, is one of the film’s great strengths. She balances humour and maternal anxiety with effortless precision, making Hannah’s conflict (that word again) both relatable and quietly moving.

Is it revolutionary? Not especially, but Hyde is not out to radicalise the queer world, let alone any others. This is a story that seeks to reinforce a sense of belonging and while it circles tribal themes with the persistence of a well-meaning seminar, JIMPA retains an easy, affectionate quality that makes it a pleasure to spend time with. It’s like a long weekend with relatives you genuinely like, even if you’re ready for your own bed by Sunday night.

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