At the invitation of the Swedenborg Society, Best For Film is publishing a special series of reviews to follow its ‘Images of the Afterlife in Cinema’ film season, which will be exploring life, death and everything in between. This week we’re struggling to get to the bottom of Marc Forster’s psychological drama Stay.

Cobain, the tortured genius behind Nirvana who killed himself in 1994 has become one of the most iconic figures in the history of angry, angry music. It seems that Oren moverma – Oscar-nominated writer-director of the Woody Harrelson/Ben Foster flick The Messenger – is in talks to write an direct Cobain’s biopic.

Turns out the hope we held out for Brothers wasn’t unwarranted. This tragic portrait of the effects of war on young lives brims with real emotion and powerhouse performances from its lead actors, particularly Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman. For the most part, despite the potential for cheese in its subject matter (man goes off to war, brother steps in to fill his shoes on the home front, man turns out not to be dead and returns to awkward situation in family), the narrative avoids cliche and leaves you with a real, confronting sense of heartbreak. It’s a harrowing film experience that hits you right in the guts, and it could well be the resurrection of Maguire’s post-Peter Parker career.