sister

ADAM Peaty’s sister Beth has revealed the lavish bridesmaid gifts she received from her new sister-in-law Holly Ramsay.

The Olympic swimmer tied the knot with Gordon Ramsay‘s daughter on Saturday in a festive ceremony at Bath Abbey.

But the nuptials had been overshadowed by Adam’s ongoing feud with his family, including his parents who were uninvited from the wedding.

Adam’s older sister Beth was the only family member to be invited to the big day – and along with Holly’s sisters Tilly, 24 and Megan, 27, she was one of the three bridesmaids.

Beth has now revealed the generous bridesmaid gift she received prior to the wedding.

She took to Instagram to share personalised items Holly had sent her, including a pot of Charlotte Tilbury Magic Cream, which retails for £79. 

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It was engraved with the words ‘Magic Beth’.

Beth wrote in the post: “Love you Holly.”

She was also treated to personalised pillow cases with her name on it and the word ‘Bridesmaid’, as well as matching tote bags for her and her partner Dan.

Beth shared a snap of her pre-wedding prep which also included a pair of black pyjamas, a sleep mask and a handkerchief which was embodied with the words ‘Beth Bridesmaid 27.12.2025.”

Just yesterday The Sun revealed that Adam uninvited his great aunt and uncle from his wedding – just four days before the ceremony.

The lead up to their nuptials was fraught with drama, after Adam, 31, uninvited his mum Caroline when a feud erupted over her failing to be invited to Holly’s hen do.

It was then revealed that Adam had said his dad Mark could attend the wedding – but he would have to sit at the back of the church.

Unsurprisingly, Mark chose not to attend, as did Adam’s brothers James and Richard.

Now, The Sun can reveal that his great aunt Janet, 73, and uncle Eddie were uninvited in a very brutal way just four days before the ceremony.

A source said: “They got an automated message basically saying they were off the guest list and to respect Adam and Holly’s decision.

“It was so impersonal, and just four days before the big day.”

The brutal text came despite the fact the couple had already shelled out hundreds of pounds on accommodation, outfits and gifts.

Following the wedding ceremony, a reception was held at Kin House in Kington Langley, Wiltshire.

It saw Holly’s dad Gordon deliver a fiery speech where he made a dig at Adam’s absent parents.

The 59-year-old chef said his wife Tana “will be a good mum to them both”.

Gordon gushed at how beautiful Holly looked and told Adam he was a “lucky man”, adding: “Look at Tana and that’s what you have to look forward to.” 

And in a sly dig at Adam’s parents he told Holly, 25: “Shame you don’t have the same.” 

His words left Caroline “outraged and hurt” with an insider telling the Daily Mail: “Caroline can’t believe Gordon brought their family troubles up his speech. It is outrageous and very hurtful.

“By him saying Tana will be a good mum to them both makes Caroline sound like a bad mum. It was a cruel dig at her.

“She has always done her best for all her children. She is a very good mum.”

However, the newlyweds brushed off any further drama as they were pictured leaving Gordon’s London home on Monday to jet off on honeymoon.

Their trip comes after Adam changed his name on social media to Adam Ramsay Peaty, a move that was quickly criticised by his ex-girlfriend.

Eiri Munroe – who shares five-year-old son George with Adam – told friends she thought it was “hypocritical”.

A friend of his artist ex – who he split from in 2021 – says she wanted George to take her surname plus Adam’s, but claims he refused.

Eiri’s pal told The Sun: “It feels a bit rich to Eiri that Adam has been quick to change his name but didn’t allow her the same right for their son.”

This Saturday will mark five years since Juan Gabriel died.

Of course, the iconic singer songwriter — real name Alberto Aguilera Valadez — isn’t really dead.

His body may no longer be with us, but how can someone who meant so much to people of Mexican heritage on both sides of the border cease to exist?

It’s impossible to sum up the full impact that Gabriel has had on generations of Mexicans and Mexican Americans. It’s more than the songs or the stage persona or the me vale attitude to what you thought about his sexuality. It’s the fact that for many of us he’s a connection to our families (raise your hand if your mom made you clean the house while blasting his music), to our homeland and to our culture. He gave us a shared language that affords us the opportunity to rejoice or grieve as a community.

There are profiles written about the man that are worth your time — I recommend this one published in The Times in 1999 — but for this newsletter we turned it over to our community to tell us how El Divo de Juárez forever changed their lives.

Juan Gabriel and the LGBTQ community

Juan Gabriel when asked if he was gay: “Lo que se ve no se pregunta”

(Julio Salgado / For The Times)

Luis Octavio remembers the first time he saw Gabriel. He was sitting with his family and the singer was about to perform on the weekly Mexican variety show “Siempre en Domingo.”

But all he could focus on was the sequins Gabriel was wearing.

“It gave me a little bit of hope that maybe my jotería would be accepted just the way my abuela, my abuelo, the tíos and everybody else who saw him on that screen accepted his and saw past his flamboyance,” said Octavio, co-founder of the drag bar El Place and one of the organizers of Boyle Heights’ first pride event.

Gabriel’s sexual orientation has always been an open secret. It has always been assumed that he was gay, but it was rarely discussed, with one glaring exception.

During a 2002 interview with news program “Primer Impacto,” reporter Fernando del Rincón asked Juanga point-blank if he was gay. With daggers in his eyes, Gabriel responded with “Lo que se ve, no se pregunta.” What is seen is not asked.

Octavio told me this interview always stood out for him — he described it as iconic, which, yeah, it is — because it told Mexican queer people that being who they were was more than enough and that you didn’t owe anything to anyone.

It’s a sentiment that Nomi B, a drag queen who hosts “Noche de Gringaderas” at El Place, certainly relates to.

“We all knew he was a sister,” she said.

“I admire that he kept his life private and he was like, ‘I don’t care what you think or say about me. I’m going to keep my life private and you’re going to enjoy my music no matter what.’”

‘Abrázame que el tiempo es malo y muy cruel amigo’

In 2000, Juan Gabriel released “Abrazame Muy Fuerte,” an operatic banger that makes the case that time is cruel, unforgiving and finite for humans. Because of this, he begs his subject to pend much of that time embraced in each other’s arms. The song was a huge hit and was used as the theme song for a telenovela that shared the same name.

A few years later, it also became my parents’ song.

Around that time, my mom developed a brain tumor. The doctors didn’t know yet if it was malignant, but my family assumed the worst. The prospect of losing our anchor became very real. My dad took it the hardest, and because he is the embodiment of the closed-off macho who tries very hard not to emote, he didn’t have an outlet to let out what he was going through.

So he did what any Mexican would do: He turned to Juan Gabriel.

I was away at college when this happened, but my sister would tell me that he’d play the song nonstop, sometimes sitting next to my mom on the couch with his eyes closed in prayer. It must’ve worked because the tumor ended up benign. Decades later, my mom is the healthiest she’s ever been.

During the pandemic, that song took on an added meaning for me. It was late last year and my parents and I decided to take a road trip. “Abrazame Muy Fuerte” came on. All three of us started singing along, and it wasn’t long before we started bawling. The painful memory came back, but with it came the realization that we still had time and we were spending it together.

That’s the thing about Juan Gabriel’s music. These aren’t just songs. They’re memories. They’re feelings we can’t express, and even if we could, why would we when Juanga’s already done it better?

When I decided to write about Gabriel, I knew that I wanted others to share some of their favorite songs. I asked friends and colleagues to contribute a song for this Spotify playlist and to write a few lines about why they picked that tune.

Artist Julio Salgado: “I wanted to illustrate a mom teaching her son to clean while listening to Juan Gabriel. I totally took this from my own experience as my mom had no tolerance for boys just sitting around and not cleaning when we were growing up.”

(Julio Salgado / For The Times)

“Querida”— He’s just so dramatic! Like, “Yes, b—!” (Nomi B, drag queen)

“Amor Eterno” — If there’s a song that defines who Juan Gabriel is, it’s “Amor Eterno.” Since he wrote the song for Rocio Durcal, it’s Juan Gabriel as a song writer. As a singer, his emotion has made it the quintessential Mexican song about heartbreak, regret, and ultimately, trying to make sense out those emotions. With the song’s lyrics and emotions — along with Juan Gabriel being from the Juárez-El Paso borderland — it’s little wonder why “Amor Eterno” was played and sang everywhere in the days following the El Paso massacre. (Roberto José Andrade Franco, writer-at-large at Texas Highways)

“La Frontera” — When I first moved to the U.S. I felt like I didn’t belong here because I didn’t speak perfect English and nobody could pronounce my name. Listening to that song and how he talked about how everybody’s happy at the border and how everyone’s different, it made me feel safe. (Luis Octavio, co-founder of Boyle Heights drag bar “El Place”)

“Inocente Pobre Amigo” — Juan Gabriel was the first poet in my life, a staple at my parents’ home in South Gate, California. My mother owned all of his albums. And when I went away to study literature at the University of Chicago, I took them with me.

I was back in California, walking around in Boyle Heights, when he passed. I got the news alert. Then, all along César E. Chávez Avenue, shop owners blasted his songs. Juan Gabriel wrote hundreds. I know all of them.

For beginners, I recommend “Inocente Pobre Amigo,” which recounts a heartbreaking disillusion but, above all, is a song about valuing yourself. Go on YouTube. Find the version that was recorded during Juan Gabriel’s first concert in Mexico City’s Palace of Fine Arts. Watch him perform with his hands on his hips, glistening in black and gold sequins. Hear him crack jokes with the audience and watch the mariachis on stage try to muffle their laugh. Recall that some elitists thought his work was too lowbrow for the venue.

When Juan Gabriel passed in 2016, his ashes were taken to that same place. For hours on end, hundreds of thousands of people poured in to pay their last respects. I wish I’d been one of them. (Julia Barajas, Los Angeles Times staff writer)

“El Noa Noa”— It’s a song about a place where you can go and be who you are. The ambience of the bar might be different than what people are used to, but it’s about everyone being welcomed and letting them feel like they can be happy. (Melissa Befierce, Mother of Haus of Befierce and events coordinator at El Place)

“No Tengo Dinero”— For me, Juan Gabriel’s songs are tied to memories of me riding on my grandfather’s truck with my aunt and my grandmother on the roads of Campeche where we lived for a few years. Juan Gabriel’s “No Tengo Dinero” is one of his iconic songs because for many it’s always a struggle to have money, but if at least we have love, we know we’ll be alright. (Denise Florez, Los Angeles Times multiplatform editor)

“Have You Ever Seen the Rain? (Gracias al Sol)” — My mom and tías have always been huge Juan Gabriel fans. I grew up in El Paso and he of course has immensely close ties to Juárez, where his career took off. His music is the soundtrack of my childhood. There was a brief time when it was around so much, it annoyed me. But when I moved away from home, that soundtrack became so powerful and comforting. It instantly connected me with my family. My sister, mom and I have sung (poorly) along to “Querida” hundreds of times at this point. But that’s going to be almost everyone’s favorite song. It’s just kind of perfect JuanGa. But the one I’ll choose for this playlist is what I believe is the only cover he ever did: “Have You Ever Seen the Rain? (Gracias al Sol).” In the video, he’s wearing amazing rainbow-colored pants and having so much fun. He brings joy to his work and it’s infectious. He’s also a great singer, so it stays on my playlist along with the much older hits. (Iliana Limón Romero, Los Angeles Times deputy sports editor)

“Hasta Que Te Conocí” — Later brilliantly covered by Ana Gabriel, it is the perfect song about love gone sour, heightened by lyrics that are pure melodrama. (Carolina Miranda, Los Angeles Times columnist)

“Así Fue” — He was never more brilliant, more heartbreaking, more JuanGa than in that song. (Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times columnist)

“Costumbres” — Here’s an extremely on brand story: During one of my family’s chaotic Christmas parties, we were all doing what we usually do⁠—drinking tequila and singing along to a playlist of Juan Gabriel, Rocío Durcal, Alejandro Fernández and, well, you know the vibes. As always, “Costumbres” comes on, the Rocío version, and my trash-talking sister starts to sing loudly, drunkenly, and off-key: No cabe duda que es verdad que la costumbre es más grande que el amor. She looks at me and says, “That’s f— real, dude. La costumbre really is más grande que el amor.” She then scowls at her husband across the room and screams over the music, “F— you, [name redacted]!”

That is the power of “Costumbres.” That’s actually the power of 99.9% of songs written by Juan Gabriel. However, “Costumbres” is god-tier in his canon of songs that have an unbelievable ability to drag your soul. We dance to “Noa Noa,” weep to “Amor Eterno,” raise our arms up to “Querida,” and strongly consider divorce to “Costumbres.”

“Costumbres” is sung from the perspective of a person telling their partner their love has been replaced by resentment, but habit and the comfort of a warm, familiar body keeps them together no matter how many times they try to walk away. Juan Gabriel’s love songs have an uncanny ability to swim in the thick nuances of romance, its brutal pains and exhilarating joys, and as is the case with “Costumbres” the harsh realities of committing your life to someone. He seemingly had a direct line to our deepest fears about love, and expressed poetically something even as mundane as being over it but staying anyway. To quote my sister, that’s f— real, dude. And it’s why “Costumbres” along with so many other songs he penned are elevated to a place of cultural veneration and soundtrack of the most affecting moments of our lives. (Alex Zaragoza, senior culture writer at Vice)

Fernandomania @ 40: El Campeón.

The latest installment of our multi-part documentary series “Fernandomania @ 40” is out today. You can watch here.

When Fernando Valenzuela took the mound in Game 3 of the 1981 World Series, the New York Yankees had a commanding 2-0 lead over the Dodgers and Tommy Lasorda’s crew was facing the real possibility of a third World Series loss in five years to their East Coast rivals. In the end, the Dodgers won the game, 5-4, largely due to the gritty performance of their rookie left-hander. Valenzuela gave up nine hits and seven walks in a 146-pitch complete-game, spurring the team to a World Series victory and cementing his pitching legacy in Los Angeles.

Missed an episode of “Fernandomania @ 40”? You can find them all here.

Yesterday was the MLS vs. Liga MX All Star Game at the Banc of California Stadium near downtown Los Angeles, but the most important soccer match that took place that day happened hours earlier at a park in Pasadena. That’s where members of the #LigaMXEng community got together to celebrate the beautiful game (and come to terms with how out of shape many of us actually are).

What’s #LigaMXEng? It’s a Twitter hashtag where podcasters, reporters, and fans from around the country congregate to talk about Liga MX, the most popular soccer league in the United States. More importantly, it’s entirely in English, the primary language for many of us. It’s that last part that does it for me.

SPOTTING yet another shark, my sister Hayley shouts: “Quick! There are loads over here,” pointing towards the edge of the reef.

We’ve only just jumped into the sea on our 90-minute guided snorkelling trip, £53 each, so I decide to closely follow the guide instead, who points out moray eels, box fish and spotted eagle rays, plus the aforementioned reef sharks, which are thankfully harmless.

There is coral aplenty, and it’s teeming with sea life in every colour of the rainbow, as if I’ve swum straight into a scene from Finding Nemo.

Water View

Staying in a water villa at Oblu Xperience Ailafushi – complete with an outdoor rainfall shower and deck with a ladder straight into the turquoise water below – offers the classic Maldives experience.

The sound of the waves lapping beneath us is more calming than any white noise track I’ve listened to.

Thankfully, this all-inclusive resort on Ailafushi island is not solely aimed at couples, unlike many luxury getaways in the Maldives.

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COSTA LITTLE

This is Spain’s cheapest island with £169pp holidays – and it’s still 23C

Even better, it’s just a 15-minute speedboat ride from the capital Malé, which works out much cheaper than a sea-plane transfer.

The main restaurant, Element X, is a buffet eatery, which also helps keep costs down.

Here, we find dishes from all over the world, but it’s the Indian selection with rich, buttery paneer masala, spicy lentil daal and fresh roti, that most hits the spot.

All the action on Ailafushi centres around the main pool, the X360 bar and the neighbouring beach, where water shoes prove handy for the coral.

Daily activities include aqua Zumba, water polo and volleyball, plus a DJ hits the decks at sunset.

There’s even a twice-weekly foam party, which reminds us of teenage trips to Ibiza.

After a few frozen piña coladas, the nightly karaoke proves entertaining, and there’s a games room complete with pool tables, board games and huge screens playing live sport.

But it’s the water slide that drops you straight into the Indian ocean that becomes our favourite activity.

Beach Happy

At the other side of the island – a 10-minute stroll away – we find the Elena Spa And Wellness Centre, one of the Maldives’ largest spas, with landscaped tropical gardens that blend indoors with outdoors.

My treatment room overlooks the beach, and beneath the spa soundtrack I can hear the gentle sound of the waves.

The Balinese massage, £57 for 60 minutes, melts away tension from our long flight, while Hayley’s detoxifying lymph massage leaves her abs looking super-sculpted.

As well as treatments, there’s a steam room, sauna and salt water infinity pool, £8 for an hour, plus a juice bike which you can pedal to blend your fruits of choice.

Later, on the 90-minute dolphin cruise, which costs £53 each, we camp out on the bow of the boat, and are soon fortunate enough to spy a pod complete with a calf leaping out of the water just as the sunset turns the sky orange.

We celebrate with a delicious five-course lobster-themed beach dinner from The Copper Pot food truck, £60 each, that includes brown butter lobster tortellini, poached lobster, fennel and mango salad and a gigantic lobster thermidor.

Another ray in paradise

Our most memorable evening is spent at Oblu’s underwater restaurant Only Blu.

At 6.8m below sea level, we tuck into three courses with wine pairings, and marvel at the marine life on the other side of the super-sized windows.

As we’re feasting on scallops with pickles and cauliflower, and Maldivian yellowfin tuna poke, a 5ft-long nurse shark glides past and hundreds of tiny fish quickly dart into the reef to camouflage themselves among the coral.

It’s not long before we spy a similar-sized blacktip reef shark, and I lose count of the number of rays that appear alongside brightly coloured trigger and lion fish, before my main course of melt-in-the-mouth, pan-fried reef fish with corn mash and an olive and caper emulsion arrives.

A gulab jamun cheesecake and rich deconstructed banoffee pie don’t disappoint either, and the night proves well worth the extra £95 each.

With the fish still entertaining us just a few feet away, if we could, we’d both happily stay here until sunrise.

ISLE BE BACK

Meanwhile, writer Samantha Rea found joy on the island of Sark.

The “toast rack” – which is basically a row of benches on a trailer pulled by a tractor – is chugging me uphill from the harbour.

With no seat belts or doors, I hold on for dear life.

But seeing as only tractors and horse-drawn carriages are allowed on the tiny isle of Sark (yes, there are no cars!), this is the best way to reach The Avenue, Sark’s main street.

And at £1.80 a ride, it’s worth a go.

Sitting in the English Channel, just off the French coast, Sark is 3.5 miles long and 1.5 miles wide with some fab foodie gems.

At Caragh Chocolates, I decorate truffles and a huge slab with hazelnuts, fudge and cranberries alongside owner Caragh, before leaving with my delicious creations.

Ninety-minute workshops cost £45 (Caraghchocolates.com).

While at cosy Nova’s Bistro, portions are generous and the rich beef stew with pastry lid, £26, and treacle tart, £9.50 (@Novas. bistro) are well worth the 20-minute walk from Stocks Hotel, where I’m kipping

I walk off some of my indulgence the next day on a one-hour tour of La Seigneurie House and Gardens, with its gorgeous fountains, bridges and chapel. It’s owned by a family who are like Sark’s royals and has a fascinating history. Entry costs £8 (Laseigneurie desercq.uk).

Sark is also great for wild swimming – the best spots being Dixcart Bay, Les Fontaine Bay and La Grande Greve.

Meanwhile, if you want to see the Milky Way once night falls, head to Sark Observatory, £10 (Darkskyisland. co.uk).

And just like the song, you’ll hopefully soon be counting stars. . .

UK flights to Guernsey cost from £100 return. Ferries to Sark cost from £38.50 return (Sarkshipping.gg).

Double rooms at Stocks Hotel cost from £250 B&B (Stockshotel.com).

NEW YORK — Two sisters testified at Harvey Weinstein’s most recent criminal trial. Kaja Sokola accused the disgraced movie mogul of sexual assault. Ewa Sokola was called as a witness to boost her claims, but ultimately ended up helping the defense.

Now, Ewa Sokola is suing Kaja on claims of defamation, alleging in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court that the psychotherapist and ex-model’s public remarks amount to libel and are damaging Ewa’s reputation and business as a cardiologist in Poland.

Ewa Sokola says that her younger sister has made false statements subjecting her to public hatred, shame, contempt, ridicule, ostracism and disgrace in Wrocław, Poland. She seeks unspecified damages.

Messages seeking comment were left for Kaja Sokola’s lawyers and spokesperson on Thursday and Friday.

In a split verdict in June, Weinstein was convicted of forcibly performing oral sex on film and television production assistant and producer Miriam Haley and acquitted on a charge involving Kaja Sokola’s allegations of similar conduct. Both women said they were assaulted in 2006.

The judge declared a mistrial on the final charge, alleging Weinstein raped former actor Jessica Mann, after the jury foreperson declined to deliberate further.

Weinstein has not yet been sentenced as a judge weighs a defense request to throw out the verdict after two jurors told Weinstein’s lawyers that other jurors had bullied them into convicting him. Judge Curtis Farber is expected to rule on Jan. 8.

Kaja Sokola has said her sister’s testimony at Weinstein’s state court trial in New York earlier this year undermined her own testimony that he forced oral sex at a Manhattan hotel just before her 20th birthday.

Weinstein had arranged for Kaja Sokola to be an extra for a day in the film “The Nanny Diaries,” and separately agreed to meet her and Ewa. After they chatted, she testified, Weinstein told her he had a script to show her in his hotel room, and she went up with him. There, she said, Weinstein pushed her onto a bed and assaulted her.

After the trial, Kaja Sokola criticized her sister’s testimony, saying that though she was called as a prosecution witness, she ended up serving Weinstein’s cause by providing his lawyers with a journal in which she wrote about the men who had sexually assaulted her in her life but did not include Weinstein.

According to the lawsuit, Kaja Sokola repeatedly characterized her sister’s testimony as a personal “betrayal” and falsely accused her of omitting journals in which she described what happened with Weinstein.

The lawsuit also said Kaja Sokola had falsely accused Ewa Sokola of homicide, theft, falsification of medical records, sexual impropriety and immoral conduct, and of colluding with Weinstein’s defense team.

The lawsuit said Kaja Sokola’s false claims have cost Ewa Sokola referrals and led to a reduction in patients and employees for her medical practice while damaging her professional reputation and her standing within the medical community.

Sisak and Neumeister write for the Associated Press.

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.

GEORGE Clooney is mourning the loss of his sister Adelia Zeidler who has died aged 65.

The Hollywood star’s sibling passed away on Friday (December 19) following a battle with cancer.

Clooney, 64, described his sister – known as Ada – as his “hero” and praised her bravery.

He said: “My sister, Ada, was my hero. She faced down cancer with courage and humor.

“I’ve never met anyone so brave. Amal and I will miss her terribly.”

Ada’s official biography says she died “peacefully” while “surrounded by the people she loved” at St Elizabeth healthcare in Kentucky.

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George Clooney reveals movie regrets and why Batsuit left kids ‘needing therapy’

‘Talented artist’

She was born on May 2 1960 in Los Angeles to mum and dad Nina and Nick, and was described as a “talented artist”.

She was named after her great-grandmother.

Her obit states: “A talented artist, she shared her skills as an elementary art teacher at Augusta Independent School for several years.

“In high school, her academic achievements qualified her to be a National Merit Scholar.

“Her love for reading connected her with other readers in a local book club.

“She was also a member of the Augusta Art Guild and was a past grand marshal of Augusta’s Annual White Christmas Parade.”

Ada married Norman Zeidler, a retired army captain, in Augusta in 1987.

While she led a very private life, she supported her brother publicly over the years, including attending his wedding to wife Amal in Venice in 2014.

Ada was snapped standing next to Clooney on a boat as they rode along a canal in the Italian city.

The siblings grew up together in Kentucky.

Clooney told CBS This Morning in 2015: “My sister, I’m very close to.”

Their mum Nina told HGTV in 2006 how she once came home to find her children had thrown a house party, and had thrown cooked marshmallows all over the walls.