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The holidays bring good cheer — an opportunity to reflect but also, most likely, the anxiety of family. Jim Jarmusch’s latest film isn’t set during the season, although the faint flickers of awkwardness, resentment and guilt that pass across its characters’ faces may be painfully familiar to audiences who have an uneasy relationship with their parents. “Father Mother Sister Brother” is here to commiserate, but because the veteran indie auteur remains a sharp chronicler of the quotidian, he has no patience for sentimentality or pat resolutions. The movie glides by so unassumingly, you may be stunned how moved you are by the end.

“Father Mother Sister Brother” is divided into three chapters, each examining a separate family. In the first segment, set somewhere in the Northeast, siblings Jeff (Adam Driver) and Emily (Mayim Bialik) visit their unnamed father (Tom Waits). The second tale shifts to Dublin, where sisters Timothea (Cate Blanchett) and Lilith (Vicky Krieps) arrive at the home of their mother (Charlotte Rampling) for their annual tea party. And in the final chapter, twins Skye (Indya Moore) and Billy (Luka Sabbat) reunite in Paris to close up the apartment owned by their parents, who recently died in a small-plane crash.

Jarmusch has occasionally sliced his narratives into pieces: His films “Night on Earth” and “Coffee and Cigarettes” were anthologies tied together conceptually. Initially, “Father Mother Sister Brother” appears to be similar, but there’s a cumulative power to the movie, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, that reveals a subtle but profound thematic undercurrent.

The first clue comes in the “Father” chapter, which begins with Jeff and Emily in the car. There’s a stilted quality to the conversation as they discuss their eccentric, inscrutable dad. The visit has the heavy air of obligation — they don’t see Dad very often — and when he clumsily welcomes them into his ramshackle house, pregnant pauses and pursed lips ensue. Nothing much happens, until the segment’s finale introduces a twist that suggests the yawning chasm between what we think we know about our parents and what the truth of their lives is.

Once we move to the “Mother” sequence, we’ve started to acclimate to the movie’s discomfiting rhythms — which is good considering that, if anything, Timothea and Lilith’s relationship with their mom is even frostier. Their mother’s polite, excessively formal demeanor cannot mask her befuddlement regarding how to relate to her children. Decked out in an unflattering haircut and eyeglasses, Blanchett plays Timothea as terminally mousy, still craving her aloof mom’s approval. By comparison, Krieps’ Lilith is more assertive, proudly showing off her pink-dyed hair and bragging about a Lexus she doesn’t actually have. Rampling crackles as a matriarch who can sniff out her kids’ lies and insecurities but has the good manners not to say anything. Or maybe it’s not kindness at all but, rather, a way to reassure herself that she will always have the upper hand.

The film’s persistent brittleness may make some viewers antsy. That’s partly the point, but hopefully, they’ll soon be swept away by the movie’s melancholy undertow. Working with a minimalist keyboard score he co-wrote, Jarmusch fills the silences with an ineffable despair. You can feel it in the way Emily looks out her father’s window to the lake beyond, the wintery tableau both tranquil and poignant. You sense it when Timothea quietly inspects herself in a bathroom mirror, wishing her life was more than it is.

Such moments could make you cry. But Jarmusch’s deadpan approach often chases that sadness with a wry chuckle during instances of unfiltered honesty. Krieps relishes portraying her character, a big-talking phony hoping to wow her mother and sister. (At one point, Lilith announces, “I almost hate to say it, but my life’s been like a dream.” Blanchett’s reaction is delicious.) Eventually, we learn to look past Jarmusch’s deceptively mundane surfaces to see the fraught, unresolved issues within these guarded families. The characters occasionally expose their true selves, then just as quickly retreat, fearful of touching on real conflict.

Which brings “Father Mother Sister Brother” to its most affecting sequence. It would be a spoiler to disclose anything about Skye and Billy’s intimate saga, but what becomes clear is that Jarmusch has fashioned the “Father” and “Mother” installments in such a way that the final “Sister Brother” segment hits differently. Just as importantly, Moore and Sabbat’s lovely performances slyly alter our impressions of those previous chapters, building to some of the tenderest moments of Jarmusch’s career.

Turning 73 in January, Jarmusch has lost none of his edge or preternatural cool, but the depth of feeling in recent works like 2016’s “Paterson” becomes, here, a bittersweet meditation on the anguish of trying to unlock the mystery of our aging parents. In “Father Mother Sister Brother,” family can be hell, but the only thing worse is when they’re no longer with us.

James Ransone, a character actor who played an impulsive, drug-dealing dock worker in the iconic HBO series “The Wire” and later appeared in horror films “Sinister” and “It: Chapter Two,” died in Los Angeles on Friday. He was 46.

According to the L.A. County medical examiner’s office, Ransone died by suicide.

A native of Maryland, Ransone studied theater at the Carver Center for Arts and Technology in the Baltimore County community of Towson, before breaking into television a few years later.

Ransone appeared in several prominent horror films. He portrayed Max in “The Black Phone,” a film about a teen boy who is abducted by a serial killer. The movie was based on a short story written by Joe Hill — Stephen King’s son — and starred Ethan Hawke. Ransone reprised his role in the sequel, “Black Phone II.”

Ransone appeared in another horror film with Hawke, taking on the role of Deputy in “Sinister.” The movie centers around a writer who finds snuff films in his new house. Ransone also acted alongside Bill Hader, Jessica Chastain and Bill Skarsgård in the follow-up “It: Chapter Two,” playing Eddie Kaspbrak, one of several characters being tormented by killer clown Pennywise.

While promoting the film, he defended the horror genre against those who consider it a “throwaway” category.

“To those people I’ll say, ‘Tell that to William Friedkin or Stanley Kubrick,’” Ransone said in an interview with Anthem Magazine.

He also had roles in the shows “Generation Kill,” “Treme” and “Bosch.” His final TV appearance came in the a second-season episode of Peacock’s comedy crime show “Poker Face,” which aired in June.

But he will likely be remembered most for his turn as Ziggy Sobotka in “The Wire,” a dark and uncompromising drama — hailed as one of the best TV shows of all time — that explored various aspects of Baltimore and its institutions. Ransone appeared in all 12 episodes of the show’s second season, which focused on the decimation of the city’s docks.

He played the son of a dock union leader, whose scheming charisma got him into trouble with other low-level criminals — but also endeared him to some viewers. In one notable story arc, he bought a duck, which he paraded around with a diamond necklace; the bird later died because he fed it too much alcohol.

The critically acclaimed HBO series aired from 2002 to 2008 and starred Dominic West, Michael Kenneth Williams, John Doman, Idris Elba, Wood Harris, Lance Reddick, Wendell Pierce, Frankie Faison, Lawrence Gilliard Jr. and more.

In a statement released to the Baltimore Banner news site, “Wire” creator David Simon called Ransone’s death “grievous and awful.”

“He committed not only to the work but to the camaraderie that turns every good film production into something familial and caring,” said the statement by Simon, who also cast Ransone in “Generation Kill” and “Treme.”

In an interview on MSNBC after the release of the movie “Sinister 2,” Ransone said he was proud of the work he had done on “The Wire” but called it a “real double-edged sword” in that people would forever typecast him as Ziggy. He described himself as a horror film fan and spoke of how working with filmmakers such as Simon, Sean Baker and Spike Lee had opened his eyes to many social inequities.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether Ransone was living in L.A. at the time of his death. A man with his name is listed on the California secretary of state’s website as living in the 700 block of North Martel Avenue, in the Fairfax neighborhood.

LAPD spokesperson Officer Norma Eisenman said that around 2 p.m. Friday a police squad responded to a 911 call about an undetermined death at that location. Inside, she said, officers found a white male who appeared to have taken his own life.

Because foul play isn’t suspected, the case is being handled by the medical examiner’s office, Eisenman said, adding that she could not confirm that the man was Ransone or provide other details about the 911 call.

TMZ reported that Ransone was a married father of two, and wife Jamie McPhee posted a fundraiser for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) in her social media profile.

In recent years, Ransone came out as a sexual abuse survivor and also spoke openly about his struggles with addiction.

In 2016, he told Interview Magazine that he had gotten sober at age 27 “after being on heroin for five years.”

“People think I got sober working on the ‘Generation Kill.’ I didn’t. I sobered up six or seven months before that,” he told the publication. “I remember going to Africa and I was going to be there for almost a year. I was number two on the call sheet and I was like, ‘I think somebody made a mistake. This is too much responsibility for me.’”

Ransone in 2021 disclosed that he had been sexually abused by a former tutor at his childhood home in Phoenix, Md. over a six-month span in 1992, according to the Baltimore Banner. He revealed the allegations on Instagram, where he shared a lengthy note that he had sent his alleged abuser, the Banner reported. A police investigation was later launched into the allegations but closed without any charges being filed.