Alpha Male (2006)

a.k.a. 

Disabilities:  Father's cancer, daughter not speaking

Comments:   The film is about how a family reacts to the father's death from cancer. Very little is shown of the father's illness.
There are two children, a boy and a girl. He's about eleven, she ten. Their mother's sister lives with them for a while and then the mother invites her boyfriend to move in. The film is mainly about the tensions in the family between the mother and the children, the mother and her sister and the children and the mother's boyfriend. The action switches between when the children are young and when they are in their late teens.
The daughter when young refuses to speak and is sent away to some kind of clinic but runs back to home. There is little discussion of what is wrong with her besides the reaction to her father's death. He confusingly for the children swung from fits of rage to being a warm, active parent. Though I thought his rage was connected to his realising there was something seriously wrong with his health.
The new boyfriend has a strong resemblance to the dead father which must be deliberate.
This is an interesting attempt at what is basically a flawed film. There is a good cast but they don't play up to their strengths. This is most noticeable in Jenifer Ehle who I know can act but here is reduced to a twisted smile. Nevertheless this is a film worth watching. I have not mentioned that this is a very wealthy middle-class family and though the father ran a business in partnership the partner plays straight and there are no money worries.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421116/