Blunt shows off her dramatic chops in this mumblecore dramedy.
The Big Picture
- Emily Blunt shines as a versatile actor, delivering charm, charisma, and gravitas in the indie romance
Your Sister’s Sister. -
Your Sister’s Sister
embodies the essence of mumblecore, showcasing complex relationships, secrets, and lies in a remote island setting. - The film’s unresolved emotions, ambiguous relations, and somber tone are buoyed by Emily Blunt’s solid performance as the heart of the story.
It’s impossible not to like Emily Blunt. If you admitted that you didn’t, you’d probably receive side-eye treatment from everyone in the room. Few figures in the industry have quite as high of an approval rating as Blunt. Beyond her innate charm and captivating onscreen presence, Blunt’s versatility as an actor offers something for all audiences. She can give you prestige dramas in Oppenheimer, romantic comedies in The Devil Wears Prada, white-knuckle thrillers in Sicario and A Quiet Place, musicals in Into the Woods and Mary Poppins Returns, and action blockbusters in Edge of Tomorrow. This diverse filmography formed her into a bankable movie star who appears top-billed in major studio releases like The Fall Guy, her new action-comedy starring alongside Ryan Gosling. Now that she’s an instantly recognizable star, it’s easy to dismiss Blunt’s chops as an actor with effortless charisma and dramatic gravitas, both of which are present in her overlooked indie dramedy, Your Sister’s Sister.
Your Sister’s Sister
Iris invites her friend Jack to stay at her family’s island getaway after his brother’s death. Jack’s drunken encounter with Iris’ sister Hannah at their remote cabin kicks off a revealing stretch of days.
- Release Date
- September 11, 2011
- Director
- Lynn Shelton
- Cast
- Emily Blunt , Mark Duplass , Rosemarie DeWitt , Mike Birbiglia , Mel Eslyn , Jeanette Maus
- Runtime
- 90
Lynn Shelton Brings Mumblecore Energy to ‘Your Sister’s Sister’
Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011, Your Sister’s Sister arrived at the tail-end of the peak of mumblecore, the indie subgenrecharacterized by low-budget stories about young adults with natural dialogue and little emphasis on plot. During the 2000s, mumblecore films were prevalent at every independent film festival. One of the seminal filmmakers of the mumblecore craze was the late Lynn Shelton, writer-director of Your Sister’s Sister. Staying true to her roots, the film follows a quintessential mumblecore premise, centering around three interconnected people working through complicated feelings. Emotionally reeling after his brother’s death, Jack (Mark Duplass) is invited by his close friend, Iris (Blunt), to stay at her family’s resort cabin on an island to boost his spirits and get away from the trauma. Unbeknownst to both, Iris’ sister, Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt) is also staying in the cabin. After an awkward meeting that leads to a candid conversation about dating while sharing a bottle of tequila, they have a one-night stand. In another surprise, Iris unexpectedly stops by the cabin. Through the rest of the narrative, lies are told, secrets are revealed, and true feelings are expressed.
Your Sister’s Sister presents itself as a rudimentary mumblecore dramedy. All the staples are there: conversation mimicking real life, a condensed scope, and complex relationships between aimless people. Every scene and exchange evokes a documentary-like portrayal of people you know or closely resemble yourself. While plot dynamics are dismissed in the genre, a series of story wrinkles throws off the familiar beats of indie dramedies in conversation with this film. After they sleep together, Jack and Hannah agree to keep this a secret from Hannah. This plan goes awry when Iris, who dated Jack’s deceased brother, confesses to her sister that she has romantic feelings for Jack. As he discards the evidence of their lovemaking, Jack finds that the condom used during sex was punctured, and this coincides with Hannah revealing to her sister that she had slept with him. Hannah, reeling from a breakup, hoped Jack would impregnate her. Along with being a study of a messy love triangle, Your Sister’s Sister is dramatically rich, thanks to its series of gut-wrenching confessions. These twists are never belabored, but they manifest naturally.
Secrets, Lies, and Confusion Run Through ‘Your Sister’s Sister’
Because the three are sequestered on an island resort, surrounded by booze, and grappling with loss, you believe that everyone’s baggage would be pouring out. The location not only lends the story spontaneity but also provides a level of tension uncommonly found in mumblecore cinema. Love triangles are a staple of romantic comedies. The concept on its own supplies enough weight to support an entire narrative. This narrative device, while evocative of rom-coms that are frivolous in stakes and flippant in tone, can be an effective story beat for conveying alienation and unrequited love. On the page and behind the camera, Shelton richly deploys dramatic irony. For the sake of disposing of the awkward tension running amok in the cabin, you wish all three would lay their cards on the table and confess, but you also suspect that one disclosed secret could potentially destroy each relationship. Shelton’s use of dramatic irony proves that the most gripping character-based storytelling revolves around how people react to news already processed by the audience.
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The setting of Your Sister’s Sister is a convergence of aimless individuals working through unresolved emotions. From the first scene, when Iris and her friends are eulogizing Jack’s late brother in the living room, Jack is noticeably separated from the pack. He finds the sanitized memorialization of his brother disingenuous. In general, Jack appears disaffected by the world, but at his lowest, he can rely on Iris as his rock. Supplemented by a bottle of tequila, their mutual sense of loss and frustration drew Hannah to Jack when they first met. Her untimely breakup leaves her feeling equally dispirited. However, she desires to have a child. Romantic confusion is at the heart of Your Sister’s Sister, and these characters embody the longing for a life of stability and honesty. For the three of them, the problem lies in the execution of honesty. They can hardly will themselves to reveal secrets.
Emily Blunt’s Charm and Gravitas is Front and Center in ‘Your Sister’s Sister’
On paper, Emily Blunt has a thankless role in Your Sister’s Sister. Iris acts as the inadvertent intermediary between Jack and Hannah, but she’s more than just a plot device. Acting as his voice of reason during his low period, Iris manages to sympathize with Jack while also motivating him to break out of his gloomy shadow. If you didn’t know any better, you might think that Iris was Jack’s protective older sister and not his close friend. She is equally supportive of her sister, and in contrast to Jack and Hannah, Iris is a shining ray of optimism. Blunt brings her usual wit and vibrant charisma to her performance. Amid the often inscrutable emotional complexities of Jack and Hannah, this allows Iris to be the source of sympathy and viewer allegiance. While Duplass and DeWitt immerse themselves in melodramatic tendencies, Blunt’s sturdy presence keeps the film afloat. Without her, the film would lose touch with its delightful humor and easygoing charm.
As the story progresses, with more and more secrets compounding on to each other between Jack and Hannah, we learn that Iris has done a seamless job of suppressing her general unhappiness. Shelton’s depiction of social malaise is at its most somber upon the revelation that Iris, presented as an ideal young woman for any man, is ambivalent towards dating. Combined with some embarrassing anecdotes shared by Hannah at the dinner table, she finds building a romantic relationship tiring and unrewarded. The most punishing personal secret unveiled in the film is Iris’ true feelings for Jack, who, deep down, connects with her at a romantic level. Along with being a messy wrinkle to her sister’s drunken one-night stand with Jack, this burning desire emotionally separates Iris from her close confidant.Some of Blunt’s finest acting to date arises in the scene where Iris bemoans to Jack that they could’ve been a couple if they only revealed their true feelings sooner. She morphs into an open wound free from years of suppression.
Your Sister’s Sister, being a film about unresolved emotions and ambiguous personal relations, never compromises its unflinching tone. The film closes on a startling cliffhanger, with Hannah taking an at-home pregnancy test as Iris and Jack observe the results. We’ll never know if Hannah is pregnant, and that’s perfectly okay. Iris and Jack agree to help raise Hannah’s potential child, but the fractured relationship between the three may just be irreparable. Whether they keep their promise is a mystery, but what is certain is that Emily Blunt excels in this underrated indie dramedy. Her role in the Lynn Shelton film paved the way for Blunt’s status as a beloved A-lister.
Your Sister’s Sister is available to rent on Amazon in the U.S.
Rent on Amazon
This article was originally published on collider.com