Netflix Recommendations 2.0 *READ FIRST POST*

Princess Cyd, which has shown up on Netflix after its recent festival run, opens with a tragedy, but the film itself largely eschews traditional drama. It is instead deeply focused on its two lead characters - a woman and her teenage niece who were affected by the tragedy 10 years ago, but have long since gotten on with life.

By avoiding drama and being intensely focused on actresses Rebecca Spence & Jessie Pinnick, writer/director Stephen Cone delivers moments of characterisation - both quiet and spoken - that pack a sort of emotional heft and believably you rarely come across. They're very different people, but the friendship that forms between them is handled with the best sort of delicacy. There are two or three scenes that are particularly beautiful moments of insight into the relationship between the two women, as well as young Cyd's romance with a coffee shop worker named Katie. It's rare to see a male director handle female sexuality so elegantly.

It doesn't all work - one moment of off-screen violence feels ill at odds with the understated story elsewhere, and there's one or two scenes in Cyd & Katie's romance that feel a bit cheesy. But for the most part this is a film that is pretty unusually compassionate and respectful towards its characters. It's gentle and modest, sometimes to a fault, but Princess Cyd is an assured piece of work that does some impressive, admirable things within its self-imposed confines.