The Glass Castle review: A family drama reminiscent of last year’s Captain Fantastic

When we first meet Jeannette (Brie Larson) in the late 1980s, she is a successful New York gossip columnist and the picture of respectability. 

A different image emerges on the night when she witnesses a bedraggled, belligerent homeless couple rummaging through the city’s rubbish bins. 

They are her mother Rose (Naomi Watts) and her father Rex (Woody Harrelson). 

The film combines lengthy flashbacks to Jeannette’s unconventional childhood in the 1970s with exploring the toxic legacy of her resentment for the father who once ruled her life. 

Harrelson’s Rex is a hopeless dreamer as unpredictable as the British weather. 

He is full of fine words and warm encouragement until the demon drink turns him into a petty-minded tyrant. 

Harrelson makes him more than a two-dimensional ne’er-do-well, finding poignancy in his good intentions and generous acts. 

He is the highlight of a family drama reminiscent of last year’s Captain Fantastic.