Allison Janney and Andrew Rannells Navigate Grief in New Film

In "Miss You, Love You," Allison Janney plays Diane, a blunt widow who ends up planning her husband's funeral alongside a total stranger: her estranged son's assistant, Jamie, played by Andrew Rannells. Her son doesn't show up himself, so Jamie does, and what follows is darkly funny, unexpectedly tender, and full of things that have gone unsaid for years.

Janney said the script stopped her in her tracks. "This is unlike anything I've played before and I'm terrified of it and I'm excited by it, and of course I have to do it."

Rannells described Jamie as someone who usually goes it alone, but finds himself pulled into something much bigger. "Strangers have an ability, in a moment, to offer a mirror to ourselves, because we can be more candid. We're not going to see this person."

What starts as an awkward arrangement quietly becomes something else: buried resentments and long-held secrets surface, but so does genuine connection. By the end, Diane has found in Jamie something close to the relationship with her son she never quite had.

The film is written and directed by Jim Rash and is now in theaters.