Your Sister's Sister

Your Sister's Sister

Emily Blunt, Rosemary DeWitt and Mark Duplass carry this intimate indie with aplomb. Your Sister's Sister starts with a strange premise that could be the basis of a manic romcom, but is kept grounded by an excellent cast and script.

Jack (Duplass) has spent a year mourning his dead brother. He's a total mess, but his best friend Iris (Blunt), also the ex-girlfriend of Jack's dead brother, steps in with some tough love and directs him to take a sabbatical at her family's home on an island off the coast of Seattle. Unfortunately, her older sister Hannah (DeWitt) is also there in search of solace, after breaking up with her long-term girlfriend. Hannah and Jack mourn their lost loves over a large bottle of tequila and wake up with monster hangovers...and a surprise visit from Iris.

Your Sister's Sister a messy, funny, and sometimes sad love story about family. Who do you choose to be in your family? What, exactly, can you forgive when people you love go too far? Writer/director Lynn Shelton starts with an odd farcical proposition, similar to her debut Humpday, wherein two buddies decide they have to prove their friendship, their open-mindedness, and their heterosexuality by making a porn movie together. Shelton takes similar risks with ideas about the fluidity of sexuality and love but pushes it forward in Your Sister's Sister. Its emotional risks are more real. The bond between Iris and Hannah is tangible and complicated. Iris worships her older sister, she climbs into bed with her and whispers secrets to her in the dark, but she is also a grown woman who is abruptly forced to face Hannah's all-too-human flaws. Jack is he weakest character, but Duplass plays him as the likeable but screwed-up shaggy dog type he's known for in the indie world. DeWitt and Blunt are perfectly matched, although one would be hard-pressed to otherwise cast them as siblings, albeit half-sisters. They play off each other perfectly, and the best example of this is a joke Hannah lobs at Iris during dinner that DeWitt ad-libbed.

Like its characters and writing, the cinematography feels wider in scope and more breathable in Your Sister's Sister. Cinematographer Benjamin Kasulke captures both the intimacy of three people trying to keep secrets from each other in a small house as well as sweeping views of the woods and water surrounding them. The direction is more sure-footed and less dependent on the intense close-ups that dominated Humpday. The end result is a fleshy, delicious love story. It's savory and joyous and leaves the viewer with some hope for love — all types of love.