Your Sister’s Sister
“Your Sister’s Sister” is a movie that would have absolutely connected with me if I had seen it in 2011-2012. In 2024, it’s also a movie that connects with me. One of my favorite stories in films and TV is following a character through a trial of self-discovery, and they are a better person on the other side of things, ready to change their lives. In 2011, I was very much in that mindset, so Lynn Shelton’s film would have been a wonderful discovery for me. Now, I’m late to the party on this film, but better late than never, in this case.
There are some tropes in fiction that only serve people in fiction, if we’re being honest with one another. One of those is the brutally honest eulogy. Most people would never consider speaking ill of the living or the dead at a funeral or memorial service- it would only isolate and alienate the speaker from others. That is how “Your Sister’s Sister” opens, when Jack (Mark Duplass) opens up about the flawed, messy human that his brother, Tom, was on the occasion of a get-together to honor his passing a year later. He’s struggling with the loss still, and while some people can’t believe he’s saying the things he is, I definitely recognize why it’s important for him to do so. While it may make people uncomfortable, sometimes the best thing we can do is celebrate the person, warts and all, in a way that resonates for us. Jack’s best friend, Iris (Emily Blunt), feels like he needs time away, and offers her family’s getaway cabin for him to relax in. When her sister, Hannah (Rosemary DeWitt), is there at the same time, however- and Iris later makes her way up there, things get really complicated, really fast.
Shelton’s script is built on several “only in the movies” contrivances and reveals, especially when Jack, Iris and Hannah are at the cabin, and yet, the characters are so real that it becomes a minor criticism. As performed by Duplass, Blunt and DeWitt, and as written by Shelton, every moment has truth. Why Hannah would make the choice she does with Jack when they are talking at the cabin that first night. We believe Iris when she talks about her feelings for Jack with Hannah. And we believe Jack. On the surface, he looks like a sad sack whose fortunes with these sisters feels improbable, but there’s a lot of charm and charisma to him; he’s also not someone looking for an easy connection. He cares about listening to Hannah that first night, and is concerned about how Iris would feel if she learned what they did that night. We do get the inevitable second act conflict, leading to everyone feeling isolated, only to come back together at the end, but as with the best films of this type, it only happens because of introspection and being honest with each other.
I mentioned at the beginning of this review how this type of story resonates with me. It would have been a welcome discovery at the time of its original release, because I had a lot of the same emotional struggles as Jack in the beginning of the film. I was very much adrift, and a piece of me had died a few years earlier when I was hospitalized, and had to really own up to my emotional struggles. I was still figuring things out in 2011, most especially how to really function without feeling the need to be in a relationship. I eventually got there, and I was ready to move to the next chapter of my life, which is ultimately where Jack arrives at by the end of this film, even if it feels a bit too neat for a film that embraced the messiness of its characters before then. I’m still grateful I finally arrived at the moment of finally watching this film.
