The term "nepo baby" has been bandied about a lot in recent years in social and mainstream media.
Originally coined by New York Magazine in an article in 2022, it has become a term of derision aimed at the daughters and sons of famous celebrities who follow a parent into the entertainment industry.
It's the perfect way to put rising stars of the movie and music industries down if they have celebrities in their family.
However it is also incredibly petty.
Why recognise ability when you can imply they have simply ridden on the coattails of family members?
Among those who have had the label placed on them are Zoe Kravitz, Lily Rose Depp, Jack Quaid, Eve and Elijah Hewson.
Also on the list are Mia Threapelton and her half brother Joe Mendes, the son of Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes.
In am interview with the BBC, Winslet understandably lambasted those who liked to bandy about the accusation.
With Mia building a promising career in acting and Joe embarking on an acting and screenwriting career as Joe Anders, Winslet strenuously denied both had "got a leg up" because of their parents.
"I don't like the Nepo baby term because these kids are not getting a leg up," the 50 year old insisted as she promoted her directorial debut 'Goodbye June' which has a screenplay by Anders.
"You know, [Joe] would say to me, 'i don't want people to think that this film is just being made because you are my mum'. The film would have been made with or without me - the script is so, so good."
So, is it?
'Goodbye June' tells the story of an English family in crisis in the run up to Christmas.
The matriarch, Helen Mirren's cancer patient June collapses in the kitchen of the home she shares with her husband, Timothy Spall's Bernie and their only son, Johnny Flynn's Connor, while boiling a kettle on a gas cooker in the kitchen.
She's rushed to hospital, with Connor taking on the responsibility of assembling the rest of the family by phoning all his siblings.
These include Toni Collette's eldest daughter and New Age yoga instructor Helen, the middle sister Kate Winslet's stressed out professional mum Julia and Andrea Riseborough's tetchy, organic food obsessed mum Molly.
As Helen grabs a flight from Germany, Julia and Molly snipe at each other, with the latter also lashing out at Jeremy Swift's oncologist Dr David Titford after he reveals June is entering the final stages of her cancer.
Bernie also seems oddly detached from what is happening to his wife, much to the annoyance of his children - especially Connor.
While Molly and Julia clash over how they will manage June's final weeks, Bernie seems more interested in eating bacon butties and drinking cans of beer while watching football on the TV in June's private room.
Tending to June's needs and observing all the family squabbling is Fisayo Akinade's nurse Angel who tries to gently guide each of them towards focusing on what really matters.
But will they use the precious time they have with June wisely instead of engaging in petty point scoring?
'Goodbye June' is an intelligently written, impressively directed, well acted movie that feels like it has come straight from the heart.
Winslet is right.
Regardless of who directed it, Anders' screenplay would have been made because for the most part, it is well crafted screenplay and rooted in authenticity.
The family bickering rings true, as does Bernie's failure to admit the gravity of the situation.
The rallying around June and the desire by family members to make her final weeks as pleasant as possible strikes a chord too.
As for the cast, they're on top form as you'd expect.
Winslet and Riseborough are excellent as two sisters who were once close but now spend the bulk of their time sparring.
Collette does a good job as a well meaning sister who is into healing crystals and other New Age things.
Flynn is terrific as the only son and the most sensitive of the four siblings, while Spall deploys every scene stealing trick in the book as Bernie.
This includes a pougnant pub karaoke scene where he performs a brilliantly judged, imperfect version of Ray Charles' 'Georgia On My Mind'.
Akinade impresses as the nurse who absorbs everything, while Swift and Stephen Merchant as Molly's husband Jerry are effective in brief supporting roles.
As for Mirren, she delivers an honest performance that lacks vanity.
Away from the screen, Winslet does a really good job in the director's chair.
Not only does she extract decent performances from her cast but she gets the pace of the storytelling just right and also its look.
Working with cinematographer Alwin H Kuchler, she makes effective use of light and shade and while the film isn't in the British neo-realist tradition, there's still an authenticity to the grottiness of its settings.
Occasionally, there are a few things about the film that feel a little too on the nose like Angel's name or the way the death scene unfolds or the "one year later" coda.
For the most part, though, 'Goodbye June' is an unlikely, well crafted Festive treat that reminds us of what really matters and how death can hit us no matter hard we prepare for it.
('Goodbye June' was released in UK and US cinemas on December 12, 2025 and was made available for streaming on Netflix on December 24, 2025)
When people look back on cinema in 2025, Ryan Coogler's 'Sinners' will stand out as one of the most original films to be distributed by a Hollywood studio this year.
Written and helmed by the 'Creed' and 'Black Panther' director, the Warner Brothers picture is a thrilling supernatural period tale set in an African American community in the Mississippi Delta in 1932.
Frequent Coogler collaborator Michael B Jordan takes on two roles as twin brothers who return to the town of Clarksdale in Mississippi after a spell in the Great War and pursuing a life of crime in Chicago.
With a lorry load of Irish beer and Italian wine, Elijah 'Smoke' Moore and his brother Elias known as 'Stack' have a plan to open their own juke joint club.
Their first recruit is their gifted, blues guitar playing cousin, Miles Caton's son of a preacher man Sammie who they ask to perform on the opening night at the venue which was acquired from David Maldonado's businessman and local Ku Klux Klan leader Hogwood.
Delroy Lindo's alcoholic blues musician Delta Slim, who is a mean harmonica and blues piano player, is also lured into performing with the promise of Chicago Irish beer.
A Chinese shopkeeper andongtime friend of the brothers, Yao's Bo Chow and his wife, Li Jun Li's Grace are asked to supply the food.
Smoke's Hoodoo practitioning ex wife, Wunmi Mosaku's Annie and Omar Benson Miller's sharecropper Cornbread are recruited too - the former to work behind the bar and the latter as a bouncer.
The juke joint's opening night draws a lot of punters including Stack's estranged ex girlfriend, Hailee Steinfeld's Mary and Jayme Lawson's Pearline, a married singer who Sammie falls for.
However it also draws Jack O'Connell's Remmick, an Irish vampire who brings Hogwood's nephew Peter Dreimanis' Bert and his wife, Lola Kirke's Joan along with him after infecting them.
Posing as musicians, the trio are turned away at the door despite insisting they come in peace and are artists who believe in racial equality.
Despite their rejection, Remmick finds away of infiltrating the club and wreaking havoc on its big opening night.
Evocatively shot by Autumn Durald Arkapaw, 'Sinners' is a gory, sweaty and grimy film that fuses the vampire genre with the Prohibition gangster tale, the racial politics of the Jim Crow era and a drama about the blues.
A vivid film, you can feel the searing Mississippi heat in every frame of the movie and also the sharp pain of every bite the vampires inflict.
Marshalled brilliantly by Coogler, a lot of credit should go to the sound team of Chris Welcker, Benjamin A Burtt, Brandon Proctor, Steve Boeddeker, Felipe Pacheco and David V Butle who have already picked up an Astra Award for their work.
But it's a film where every department contributes from Ruth E Carter's costume design to Sian Richards, Ken Diaz, Mike Fontaine and Sunika Terry,'s hair and make up team to Michael V Shawver's film editing and Hannah Beachler and Monique Champagne's production design.
The Swedish musician and composer Ludwig Goransson plays a significant role in its success, with a score that riffs on the blues music of Robert Johnson, BB King and Irish music with 'The Rocky Road To Dublin' getting a raucous airing at one point.
Deploying blues legend Buddy Guy, who has a minor role in the film, and other blues musicians, Coogler and Goransson also include a song called 'Dangerous' written and performed by Hailee Steinfeld.
Like all the best horror films, there's a lot more going on beneath the surface of 'Sinners'.
Racial politics loom large - not just in the brothers encounter with the local KKK but also in the way Remmick wants to feed off the creativity of Sammie's blues guitar.
The notion of vampires exploiting the blues for their own ends is a wonderful allegory for the way African American culture, has been appropriated and repeatedly raided by the entertainment industry.
Coogler's decision to make his vampire Irish is a smart nod to Bram Stoker and the vampire genre's roots in Irish folklore.
While the use of the blues to tell a supernatural horror story is also a nod to the mythology around Robert Johnson.
It's also encouraging to see Coogler challenging Hollywood stereotypes though his casting.
Mosaku's positioning as a love interest for Jordan's Smoke upends Hollywood's tendency to have love interests who are skinny.
Yao and Li Jun Li's grocery store owners also talk like Americans, when other films might have had them delivered their lines in a stereotypical exaggerated Asian accent.
As for the performances, Jordan's dual roles confirm him as one of the most exciting and charismatic actors to have graced the screen in recent years.
Mosaku is eye catching as Annie, while Steinfeld and Caton more than justify their prominence in the film.
Lindo, Yao, Li Jun Li, Miller, Lawson, Maldonado, Dreimanis and Kirke provide stirring support.
After his lively appearance at the end of Danny Boyle's '28 Years Later,' O'Connell is a joy, pulling off a brilliant balancing act as Remmick in a role that could easily have gone off the rails by being too over the top.
'Sinners' benefits from a host of smart choices that combine to make it the most exciting blockbuster of 2025.
As superhero and spy movies come and go, this is an original, refreshing and intelligent vampire movie that leaves a lasting impression.
Undoubtedly Coogler's finest work to date, 'Sinners' confirms his place as a major force in film.
('Sinners' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on April 18, 2025)
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