“You should never smoke weed unless you’re dying or having sex.” How’s that for grandmotherly advice? It comes from a dying woman to her insecure grandson, and since he’s there for her deliberately chosen and prepared death, you know he’ll remember the occasion. Moments like these liven up Roger Mitchell’s Blackbird. The film’s skillful cast and some affecting moments also help confer some pulse onto what can feel like a formulaic family drama, albeit one featuring euthanasia.

Stricken with a degenerative illness, Lily (Susan Sarandon) has decided to take her own life. Her husband, Paul (thinking woman’s sex symbol Sam Neill), is ready to help her along with “enough pentobarbital to kill off half of Manhattan.” The couple have summoned their grown children, along with their spouses and kids, to spend a last hurrah with Lily until the moment she drinks a lethal potion and dies with the family by her side. Gifts will be given, tears and memories shared, and old wounds picked by this articulate, tightly-wound clan.

The film is a remake of the 2014 Danish movie Silent Heart, and it bears definite traces of Scandinavian DNA: the wintry shores outside Paul and Lily’s tastefully minimalist home, the canny use of textured natural light, and a stoic, clear-eyed attitude toward death. As a result, its corny touches come as a surprise as the siblings bicker, adults act like spoiled children, and a contrived love triangle raises its head in the third act. Mitchell has us lurching back and forth from Interiors to The Family Stone.

Despite disorienting shifts in tone, Blackbird is still pretty watchable. Family awkwardness, frustration, and regret ring true. Performances are strong, with a plain-Jane Kate Winslet playing an uptight worrywart who knows she annoys everyone around her but can’t stop herself. And in a plum fierce, feisty role, Sarandon dominates the screen with her evocation of a vital woman driven to skip inevitable decay and control her own exit. The moment Lily faces death is raw and powerful. The film goes down the Swedish path in its last chapter, and it is the right choice.