Diane lives in a dog-eared New England town where it’s always winter, even when the sun occasionally shines through the overcast. She’s a relentless caregiver, driving the two-lane roads that separate her terminally ill cousin (Deirdre O’Connell) from her convalescing neighbors and the soup kitchen where she serves mac’n’cheese. Probably Diane (Mary Kay Place) has crossed the threshold for Social Security and Medicare, explaining her lack of a paying job (well into the film, I thought she was a professional “visiting angel”). She lives amidst the beeping monitors and beige monotony of hospital rooms. She’s caring at heart but careworn, burning out while trying to keep everyone else’s flame alive.
Diane, the feature debut by writer-director Kent Jones, is a drama set amidst life’s tragedies, chief among them, the physical deterioration of aging, the inevitability of death and the powerful hold of addiction. The latter problem is manifested in Diane’s adult son, Brian (Jake Lacy), whose angry slap-back to mom’s helping hand is a snarling “Leave me alone!”
Diane benefits from a cast comfortable inside their everyperson roles, playing it low-key through the banal small talk. Much of the dialogue wanders among memories of life’s unimportant details (“What was this place before it was Country Buffet?”), even if more hurtful recollections gradually give substance to the protagonist’s past. Andrea Martin is solid and unostentatious as Diane’s best friend, Bobbie. The two women share their complaints—about their lives as well as their health.
Christmas is coming for much of the film and the dull ornaments and dim-colored lights only underscore the protagonist’s quiet despair. Diane is an austere story of devotion without joy, a thoughtful meditation on the gray border where nagging, selfishness and guilt converge with love, as well as the many forms addiction can assume, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
