Review of Your Sister's Sister (2011) by Philip P — 09 Nov 2012

In a movie that leads one to believe even you could create a feature film given a couple free days and a high quality camera, not to mention a nice spread of talent that conveys the themes of a melodramatic script, Your Sister's Sister is able to separate itself from everything else if not for nothing else for its humble beginnings.

Making up the trio of leads is a man who has done so much this year it feels as if he walked straight off the "Safety Not Guaranteed" set and onto the short shoot that resulted in this little film.

Still, Mark Duplass is a welcome presence and he oozes the perfect sense of natural charm and fun to make this short talkie a winner. It also doesn't hurt that heavy hitters like Rosemarie DeWitt and Emily Blunt round out the cast and together the three of them and their many conversations that make up this film feel absolutely real, funny and for the most part off the cuff.

I haven't seen any of writer/director Lynne Shelton's other work but it is clear she has a knack for writing natural dialogue and creating people we all know and can easily relate to. The plot of the film though is so standard and such soap opera type fare though it is hard to see past the different surprises as more than substitutes for the more dramatic or action driven scenes the film couldn't deliver because of its budget.

There is a lot of talking, and that isn't bad especially when it is coming from the mouths of three such likable and charismatic people as these (though DeWitt's Hannah will rub you the wrong way sometimes) but the overall feel of the film is running on fumes by the time it reaches its conclusion that feels even more than the rest of the film as if it is pandering to drama that isn't necessarily there.