In one of the best scenes in I’ll be right therea character tells a family story involving an unlikely getaway driver. Joining in on the story is her middle-aged daughter, who knows her way around driving—though her role behind the wheel is more about schlepping than making a getaway. These two strong women are played by Jeannie Berlin and Edie Falco, actresses with indescribable, down-to-earth verve. When, later in the film, the screen is filled with a slow-motion shot of them walking side by side down a hospital hallway, it feels like a winking, loving gift, one of the dizzying dividends of this wry portrayal of family and midlife anxieties.

Shot in a hamlet in northeastern New York (Pearl River, in Rockland County), this is director Brendan Walsh’s second feature film (after Celsius) is an affair of modest scale that benefits from its uncomplicated sense of place and excellent casting. I’ll be right there moves on a terrain between comfort and delicateness – just like the main character Wanda (Falco), who is tired of being the voice of reason in the midst of so much drama, and yet finds a middle ground between justified despair and great patience as she cares for one family member in need after another.

Wanda is the divorced mother of two half-grown children. Daughter Sarah (Kayli Carter) is eight months pregnant and wants a church wedding before the due date with Eugene (Jack Mulhern), a balanced guy who is as calm as he is hysterical. Wanda’s helpless son Mark (Charlie Tahan from Ozarkswho will be back with Carter in the Bob Dylan biopic A complete unknown), has overcome his addiction problems, but to the chagrin of his therapist (Geoffrey Owens), continues to have a difficult relationship with the truth.

Wanda’s ex-husband Henry (Bradley Whitford) has his hands full with the new brood of children and is a bit of a whiner himself. Her mild-mannered boyfriend Marshall, played with unexpected restraint by Michael Rapaport, is in the silent grip of a kind of existential angst. He blurts out an illogical marriage proposal, but then takes it back in the next breath, ashamed that he’s gone too far. Even if she didn’t cheat on Marshall, marrying him would be the last thing on Wanda’s list of goals, having recently discovered her lesbian side. If she even had one.

Her relationship with the young college professor Sophie (Sepideh Moafi, by Black Bird And The murder of two lovers) is a secret, but one she doesn’t keep too closely. Henry and Sarah’s reactions to the revelation are astutely written and acted, but more important is Wanda’s dawning realization that the romance isn’t so great. Sophie, who excels at compartmentalizing things, often shows up on Wanda’s porch at odd hours, sometimes drunk and always horny.

And then there’s Wanda’s new friendship with Albert (Michael Beach), a high school classmate who recently returned to town. While his role as a firefighter and devoted divorced father may be too easy a shortcut for genuine, honest goodness, there’s also something fresh and winning about the way he’s both nervous and impressed when Wanda mentions her bisexual relationship status.

Based on a screenplay by Jim Beggarly (A country called home, A year and changes), Walsh struggles to strike the desired tone between black comedy and something more soothing at the start – even with Falco and Berlin at the centre of the opening sequence, which focuses on 68-year-old Grace (Berlin) receiving a cancer diagnosis that turns out better than she expected. The gallows humour feels strained and the intrusive bounciness of James Righton’s score is too much. Things settle down and find their footing with Tahan’s first scene, which offers a jolt of more complicated humour.

Responding to the various SOS messages from Grace, Sarah and Mark around the clock, Wanda is always on call; the film’s title expresses an emotional refrain. At the wheel of her blue station wagon, she spends much of her days crisscrossing the city to provide comfort and rescue. At night, she goes about her work as an accountant. The scenes of her doing the books in bars and restaurants in the small downtown area are full of the mundane yet unexpected, captured by Aaron Medick’s camerawork, while Righton’s score takes on an anxious and effective undertow. (Elsewhere, it hits pitch-perfect comedic notes.) There’s quality family time, too, captured in scenes at a local ice cream parlor, where three generations of women talk about what’s going on. Or what happened decades ago.

It would be an exaggeration to call this film a showcase for actors, but it is certainly an actor’s film, as evidenced by the involvement of Falco and Jesse Eisenberg (who Free samplesBeggarly’s first produced screenplay). Alongside Wanda’s interactions with other characters – complete with eye rolls and precise use of the skeptical raised eyebrow – Falco finds the subtle poignancy in a few game-changing breakdowns, with Rapaport and Berlin providing the perfect counterbalance to each. Falco and Whitford are spot on in the select scenes they play together, slipping effortlessly into the well-worn rhythms and grooves of their characters’ animosity.

Carter and Tahan bring nuance to their broader roles, while Berlin captivates you with everything about her – not least the syncopated rhythms of her lines, especially when the lines have a built-in bite. “It’s not gambling,” the casino regular tells her daughter, “if you know how to play.”

Falco, always thrilling, may not be taking a wild gamble here, but there is some risk in her and the film heading for a tidy conclusion. And it is wise that they end up with a much messier, sweeter and more satisfying ending.