Jankis Recommends: Lynn Shelton's YOUR SISTER'S SISTER
It’s a special kind of antipathy and disregard for social acceptability that motivates a person to take up airspace at a memorial by dumping on the deceased. Jack, played by Mark Duplass, seems to have this in spades for his brother, brought out in response to the glowing remembrances of his friends, gathered a year after his death. Ousted coldly from the group - not unjustifiably - Jack’s dear friend Iris (Emily Blunt) suggests he needs somewhere to clear his head and sort some things out. She offers her father’s cabin on a remote Pacific Northwest island.
Unemployed, shiftless, and an acerbic emotional wreck, Jack pedals his bike out to the cabin, only to discover Iris’ sister Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt) unexpectedly drowning her sorrows in tequila. She has just left her long-time girlfriend due to an act of infidelity, and finds the prospect of a drinking partner shockingly welcome. Several shots later, the two find themselves taking an awkward tumble in the sheets, a situation neither wants to explain to Iris when she arrives unannounced the next morning.
The opportunity for screwball antics abound in Your Sister’s Sister, as secrets between characters pile up and reasons for keeping them become more complex. However, true to the tenets implied by the film’s Mumblecore bonafides (low budget: check. Heavy on dialogue and light on action: check. Presence of a Duplass brother: check), writer and director Lynn Shelton strips back those dramatic mechanisms that generally make movies “Movies” in favor of letting her story breathe and germinate naturally. This is not the same thing as the typically overt conflictlessness that defines the less accomplished entries of the genre. Rather, her conflicts come from a rich understanding and unfolding of character.
Shelton’s script is remarkable in both in how unwritten her dialogue seems - improvisation is always key in these films - and how fussed over the details of her characters’ psychology and emotions feel. Scenes play out with long stretches of banter that seem breathed into life on the spot by the actors and while remaining hyper-focused on where the film needs to go. The long, seemingly pointless conversations end up filled with extraneous detail that the film later builds upon richly. It helps that these conversations are, frequently, also incredibly funny.
Director:
Lynn Shelton
Starring:
Emily Blunt
Rosemarie Dewitt
Mark Duplass
Screenplay by
Lynn Shelton
Shelton was widely praised for the naturalism and intimacy of her breakout Humpday, and it is little surprise that those qualities reign in Your Sister’s Sister. She shoots most of these branching conversations in close-ups and single shots, but she also knows when her characters need her to pull back and give whatever they’re working through some space. Iris’ late night confession of affection and Jack slowly recognizing the preciousness of Iris and Hannah’s sisterly bond - and how he has inadvertently disrupted it - are granted a startling amount of sensitivity and attention. The second comes in a lengthy narrative shortcut of a climactic montage, but the film recovers from it very quickly with a wonderfully ambiguous and fitting final shot and an affecting monologue from Duplass. Films of this nature are often pejoratively known for their talkiness; in Shelton’s hands it is an asset. For her, to talk is to reveal, and to reveal is to become human.
Your Sister’s Sister is available to stream for IFC Films Unlimited subscribers and can be rented or purchased on most VOD platforms