Dragonfly

Stellar duo Brenda Blethyn and Andrea Riseborough deservedly won the acting award at Tribeca for this piece of top-class English social realism.

When Elsie is dissatisfied with the home help her son has hired, her younger neighbour Colleen offers to assist. The two lonely women have previously socialised a little over a cup of tea, but the son is strongly opposed to the new arrangement. And when he ensures that Colleen’s bull terrier is sent to eternity by the police, all hell truly breaks loose. Dragonfly tackles social plagues such as poverty and loneliness and their fateful consequences with both seriousness and good humour. And it is thrilling as well.

• Freddy Olsson