Jean of the Joneses

Plot

Jean Jones (Taylour Paige) is a writer who comes from a family of Jamaican-American matriarchs. After her boyfriend tells her he needs space she moves out of his apartment and goes to dinner at her grandmother's house. Just as the family is about to sit down to dinner the doorbell rings and Jean goes to answer it. It is a man, who abruptly dies after asking for Jean's grandmother. Jean goes with him to the hospital, where she is hit on by Ray, an EMT who asks for Jean's number. While rifling through the dead man's things Jean discovers his last name is Jones and after confronting her family, comes to realize that he is her estranged grandfather, Gordon.

Jean goes to live with her aunt, Anne, a nurse who was having an affair with a married doctor and confides to Jean that she is pregnant with his child. After Jean is a poor houseguest Anne kicks her out of her apartment and she goes to stay with her strict mother, Maureen.

Maureen is extremely critical of Jean, upset that since money for the advance of her last book has dwindled away she has to work as a server, and judgemental of her budding relationship with Ray. Jean manages to convince her to claim her father's body and throw him a funeral, but after Maureen asks Jean when she is moving back with her boyfriend, Jean moves out and goes to live with her aunt Janet.

While at Janet's Jean discovers that Janet is separated from her husband and that she has a secret aunt Laura, from her father's relationship with another woman. Talking to Laura she accidentally divulges that her Gordon died, something Laura had no idea about.

At Gordon's wake Jean confronts her family. She reveals to her aunts that her grandmother always knew that their father was still living in New York but that she lied and told them he had abandoned them to go to Jamaica. She also invites Ray who returns some of Gordon's possessions. He also tells Jean that he read her book of short stories and asks her if she truly believes she is destined to end up single and alone, telling her that to do so would be a choice, not her fate.

Jean goes to her old boyfriend, Jeremiah who tells her that they are over for good. With nowhere to go and having used up all the goodwill from her family, Jean goes to Gordon's home where she discovers that he followed her writing career and unearths his will.

At Gordon's funeral Jean reads out a statement from Gordon's will where he apologized for being a terrible father and abandoning his children.

After hearing what their father said, the Jones women begin to heal. Maureen tells Jean she loves her, Anne decides to keep her baby and Janet, still separated from her husband, works towards co-parenting peacefully with him. After it turns out that Gordon left his home to Jean's grandmother, she decides to let Jean stay there if she pays rent.

Meanwhile Jean helps to publish Gordon's memoirs, which she also discovered as part of his estate and writes the forward. With her life back on track she goes to Ray's school where he is studying nursing and asks him to be with her.

Cast

Reception

The film received positive notices. Justin Chang, writing for Variety, called it "a fine debut".

The film received two Canadian Screen Award nominations at the 5th Canadian Screen Awards, for Best Supporting Actress (Shepherd) and Best Original Screenplay (Meghie).