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By Douglas Wood
Rated R
Currently streaming on Prime and YouTube
If ever there was a romantic comedy that was doomed to fail it would surely be Your Sister’s Sister, a three-person chamber piece written and directed by the late Lynn Shelton with improvised dialogue by the leading players. The film was made in a jaw-dropping 12 days on a budget of an equally jaw-dropping $120,000. There was no completed screenplay, just a 70-page “scriptment” (half-script, half-treatment) that refused to follow the established formula for rom-coms– in fact, it subverted the genre.
To further complicate production, Rachel Weisz dropped out three days before filming commenced, to be replaced by Emily Blunt. The other female lead, Rosemary DeWitt, was hired just a day before shooting. What resulted, miraculously, is a cohesive film as funny and charming as it is unpredictable.
Mark Duplass plays Jack, a depressed Seattle slacker mourning the loss of his brother, Tom, whose ex-girlfriend, Iris (Blunt), happens to be Jack’s best friend. Iris sees Jack is in trouble—not too difficult to discern, considering his drunken, profanity-laced eulogy at a memorial party on the one-year anniversary of Tom’s passing. She suggests he spend some time alone at her family’s vacation home on a remote island off the coast of Washington state. “There’s no TV, no internet, it’s just you,” she tells him. “Do they have forks?” he asks, “Because I may need to stab myself in the face.”
Nevertheless, Jack rides his bike to the ferry and not having to worry about work (he’s “between jobs”), embarks on a journey promising epiphanies and quality alone-time. But, in the first of several plot twists, the cabin turns out to be occupied by Iris’s older half-sister Hannah (DeWitt), who’s up to her ears in her own grief; she’s just gotten out of a seven-year relationship with her girlfriend, hence the bottle of Tequila she willingly shares with Jack.
There’s extraordinary chemistry between the two actors in this scene as their characters jibe and flirt with one another until a divine drunkenness is achieved. It’s here we notice the benefits of the loose improvisational dialogue that achieves a naturalism rivaling the best work of Cassavetes or Altman but seldom seen in more commercial films. The contrast between DeWitt’s acerbic wit and Duplass’s sweet blundering makes for comic gold, and how refreshing it is to be manipulated to laugh not at set-ups and punchlines, but the sometimes awkward rhythms of speech we recognize as our own.
This genuine emotional immediacy via improvisation places My Sister’s Sister squarely in the subgenre of micro-budget independent films known as Mumblecore, in which aimless, often inarticulate characters in early adulthood contend with difficult romantic relationships and other aspects of contemporary American life. Sprouting up around 2002, Mumblecore resulted from the profusion of cheaper filmmaking technology, and though the term is often used pejoratively, the artform includes the fine work of Mark Duplass and his brother Jay who write, direct, produce, and/or act in some wonderful films such as Language Lessons, Manson Family Vacation and Cyrus.
It’s the Mumblecore aesthetic that provides the invigorating naturalism in the drinking scene, but it’s the screenwriter’s cleverness that provides the next plot twist: Jack and Hannah (a lesbian, remember) fall into bed and have a drunken, cringe-inducing roll-in-the-hay. And the last plot twist to be divulged here is that Iris unexpectedly arrives the following morning. Jack’s reaction upon seeing Iris is a brilliantly executed line reading for which rewinding was invented. Feigning delight, Jack manages to spit out: “Howwhatwhywhat’reyouhow’dthe… what are you doing here?” The end of this first act has momentarily turned the story into something resembling a bedroom farce. Mumblecore Three’s Company, if that’s a thing.
Jack is flummoxed and wants to keep the tryst a secret from Iris. The truth is, he’s in love with her, and she with him, although he doesn’t yet know that, nor does Hannah. The good news for us is that we’re now treated to more compelling chemistry, this time between Blunt and DeWitt, whose nuanced and intimate interactions suggest these two actors must be real-life sisters. Blunt, playing against type, brings warmth and a touching fragility to her role, and her rapport with Hannah provides the film with an affectionate tone that keeps us emotionally invested.
The remaining acts, complete with another plot twist, this one with very high stakes, progress into more conventionally dramatic material and an ending that’ll please some and disappoint others. There are scenes of our trio of damaged souls grappling with their grief and betrayal against the chilly beauty of the Pacific Northwest, but most of the action remains inside the cabin, making the film feel much like a filmed play. That’s not necessarily a bad thing when you have actors like Blunt, DeWitt and Duplass to spend ninety minutes with. They, along with Shelton, know how to keep things real. And those of us who appreciate reality over fantasy for entertainment are richly rewarded. Your Sister’s Sister is like an awesome playdate for adults.
Sounds good. I will check it out.