cheerless

As The Times’ Mike Bresnahan so succinctly wrote during the 2013 auction kerfuffle: “Bryant’s career with the Lakers has often been pushed aside by internal family matters, the recent court battle over his memorabilia the latest in a string of cheerless events.”

Cashiers at the supermarket knew them as a quiet, cheerless family that shopped several times a week.

That Aldó and Klára can talk to each other about such things, while showing a respectful attitude toward their individual emotional architecture — his paternally compassionate touch, her request for comforting hugs — suggests an open door to healing neither wants to shut; and which convinces Olgi to accept a co-guardianship with this cheerless but kind doctor.

Set in an especially cheerless pocket of Southern California, where high-voltage lines loom over the sparsely treed landscape, it opens in the summer.

“It’s nothing fancy,” the employer says, clearly believing otherwise, as the nanny’s smile fades in the gray, cheerless light.