Lost in an emotional funk one year after his brother's death, Jack takes his best friend Iris up on her offer for a reflective week of solitude at her family's remote island retreat. Upon arriving at the house, Jack discovers that Iris' sister Hannah had the same idea, and the two spend an awkward evening together. Iris shows up the next morning unannounced, setting in motion an emotionally twisted tale of sisters, brothers, and best friends. Shelton once again honestly explores the complexities of interpersonal relationships while gently poking fun at her characters' predicaments.
Reviews
The Financial Times
Nigel Andrews
“Every actor improvises, which means that every thought – and shading of thought – is peeled and cored like an apple in half-light, a process that can drive audiences mad in bad mumblecore films. This is a good mumblecore. The verbal agonisings are funny, skilful, revealing.”
28/06/2012
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The New Statesman
Ryan Gilbey
“Your Sister’s Sister incorporates variations on the country-house drama and a jokey nod toward the whodunnit, with Jack turning detective and stumbling upon his own delirious version of the smoking gun. The camera wobbles just enough to remind us that we’re watching a film in which the actors used phone boxes for trailers, if they had trailers at all, while the soundtrack dial is turned to the “generic indie strumming” setting with a side order of wind chimes for moments of mystery. But the film is too skillful to be affected adversely by these mannerisms. Shelton has developed a new and impressive aptitude for discreet slapstick, like the moment when Jack and Iris both try to gesture to Hannah without the other’s knowledge. Cutaways to the pastoral, mist-shrouded surroundings lend the comedy a serene tint.”
27/06/2012
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Time Out
Cath Clarke
“It’s beautifully acted: Blunt gives an eye-openingly warm performance as Iris. Duplass does his charming, lumpy-lopey thing. As for DeWitt, I could get seriously fangirlish about her; she steals the show as Hannah – brittle but very cool, hiding everything behind her sphinx smile.”
28/06/2012
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The Scotsman
Alistair Harkness
“An incredibly skilled piece of work, with Jack and Hannah’s attempts to work out how best to confess their shared mistake to Iris leading to lots of wry, knuckle-gnawing tension and skin-crawling laughter.”
28/06/2012
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The Independent on Sunday
Nicholas Barber
“An insightful, humane study of relationships between siblings and between men and women, with improvised dialogue that sounds like real speech, only funnier.”
01/07/2012
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The Observer
Jason Solomons
“The naturalism of the performances provides the film's charm – a giggle from Blunt, tears from the excellent DeWitt – and with the improvisations evident in Your Sister's Sister, the modern romcom has gone from emetic to mimetic. Shelton's method is to reproduce reality as closely as possible. That traditional obstacle-to-love vital to all romcoms has been removed in this story of Hannah and her sister, leaving only the characters' neuroses, fears and inadequacies as their impediments. Although she would probably have liked a little more plot and polish, Nora Ephron would, I think, have approved.”
01/07/2012
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The Daily Telegraph
Tim Robey
“The three leads gel intelligently in a scenario that might have been better suited to the stage. In the end, Shelton flees from her idea rather than fully working it through”
29/06/2012
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Empire Magazine
Damon Wise
“This is a director who likes people and, though the trio here don’t always do the right thing — Jack is needy, Hannah is working to a sneaky secret agenda — there is warmth here. Are they redeemable? Sure, but Shelton has fun nevertheless with the consequences of their actions.”
26/06/2012
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The Times
Wendy Ide
“Shelton stirs up a hornet’s nest of sexual tensions and agendas, but then just when you are hoping for a searing climax, she resorts to a sluggish musical montage sequence.”
29/06/2012
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Total Film
Jonathan Crocker
“Blunt is bright and wonderful as the girl in the middle. Rachel Getting Married star DeWitt takes a role that’s bending towards cliché – a vegan lesbian who’s “emotionally allergic to butter” – and reinforces it with careful complexities. So it’s a real shame, then, that Your Sister’s Sister stretches a little bit too far for its own good. Having drawn out the drama with such humour and subtlety, the movie’s third act rings surprisingly false to leave it feeling as weird and unrealistic as Humpday.”
20/06/2012
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The Sunday Times
Edward Porter
“ This tangle is dramatised in loose, improvised dialogue, the usual method of the film’s director, Lynn Shelton ... Much of the talk is credible and vibrant, which makes the pat tidiness of the ending a big disappointment.”
01/07/2012
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The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
“The movie is a piece for trio, and Shelton shows plenty of finesse in the orchestration of their movements. So low-key is the look she aims for, and so halting and unrefined the dialogue, that the outcome strays now and then to the borders of the merely glum; but all three performers add both tone and, when required, a fierce volume to their interplay. ”
25/06/2012
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The New York Times
A. O. Scott
“Nothing much happens — food is cooked, coffee is drunk, jokes are cracked, eyes are rolled — and the loose, vagabond rhythm makes Your Sister’s Sister feel a bit like a French movie, immersed in personalities rather than driven by the machinery of plot. Unfortunately the easygoing mood does not last. The film’s late swerves into melodrama and the neighboring region of farce feel panicky and pandering. The subtlety of the performances — Ms. DeWitt’s in particular — is sacrificed for easy laughs, shallow tears and a coy trick ending. Just when it was starting to get interesting.”
14/06/2012
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The Guardian
Phelim O'Neill
“There is some great work by the performers, their characters often seem painfully real, although nearly every bit of subtlety is countered by a plot contrivance or scene that's too on the nose. ”
28/06/2012
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The Independent
Anthony Quinn
“Less challenging and funny than Shelton's previous Humpday, the film retreats from its initial edginess into something comfortable and slightly glib, a study in self-absorption that lets off its characters too easily.”
29/06/2012
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