Lynn Shelton’s ‘Your Sister’s Sister’

Lynn Shelton directed and wrote this film. I’ve not seen the others she’s directed or acted in.

Your Sister’s Sister is a low-budget near three-hander following sisters Iris (Emily Blunt) and Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt) and Iris's friend Jack (Mark Duplass, another actor/director) over a few days mostly spent in a house on an island off Seattle. It would spoil the plot to say too much about the nature of their relationships. Another film might have taken the complexities of their situation in a less sentimental direction and ended up as a tragedy. As it is, Your Sister’s Sister is a rom-com and played for laughs, a lot of them at the expense of the male of the species (Duplass is no Clooney, a friend of Blunt and her husband). Much of the humour is not intended for the legendary maiden aunt and even more seasoned souls might find the f*** gerund/adjective a bit overworked – apparently there was a lot of unscripted ad-lib. I suppose its use gives the actors time to think while they are trying to do the writer’s job. As for the way it ends – you can make your own mind up.

Dunplass, Blunt and De Witt

Blunt gives Iris an accent which could be described as transatlantic oscillatory, but she makes the best of playing a younger sister still in thrall to De Witt’s ambivalent Hannah. A darker and more complex drama would have been well within their capabilities.