User reviews

Lynn Shelton's 'Your Sister's Sister' opened the 2012 Glasgow Film Festival and received a near-rapturous response. This is a keenly observed tale of individuals as complex and frail as you, me and everyone we know...

Iris commemorates the passing of her partner Tom at a gathering of Tom's friends, where Jack, her best friend, offers up a less than flattering eulogy. Jack, coincidentally Tom's sibling, is packed off to a remote island lodge to get his head together, where he encounters Iris's sister, Hannah. Complications ensue - by the bucket-load.

Shelton took time to explain her process in the Q&A at the Glasgow Film Theatre screening. The cast improvised to a certain extent, but spent a vast amount of time creating back-stories for their characters. That preparation pays off in naturalistic exchanges, interruptions and repairs, gestures and looks that remonstrate, encourage or deter in a convincingly authentic manner. The film is very, very funny, and then genuinely touching and fraught. Throw in an ending you will either love (like me) or loathe, and you have a mature, entertaining film whose execution and polish defies the 12-day shooting period.

Wonderful performances from Emily Blunt, Rosemarie DeWitt and Mark Duplass as the conflicted trio. Blunt gets to explore more range here than My Summer of Love or anything else on her CV, and shows a growing maturity. The film is involving from the very first frame and holds your attention throughout. Shelton has found a refreshing formula. Bigger budgets and less challenging schedules may follow, but one hopes the stringent process remains.

A dialogue heavy film, which I am often very fond of and this is no exception. Basically a three- hander with a trio of sublime and believable performances from Mark Duplass, the always excellent Emily Blunt and the seriously under rated and forever sister (United States of Tara, Rachel's Getting Married) Rosemarie DeWitt. They simply inhabit these characters.

A film told with great honesty and natural flair, with a lot of the dialogue being apparently improvised, I was entertained and intrigued from beginning to end. I laughed out loud on a number of occasions at the spoken wit and the extreme awkwardness of some of the scenes. These are all flawed people, but they are all relatable and likable.

It does fall into a little bit of predictability and cliché as it moves on through the story and I surprisingly had no issue with one aspect that angers many a gay woman, as to me it made sense for the character.

It was a journey I very much enjoyed and it felt quite different from your average rom-com.

This movie is a real treat to watch, i saw it on a rainy afternoon, alone, at my local cinema, it was pretty quiet, but I must say I think it added to my enjoyment, watching it alone almost made me feel as though I was a fly on the wall in this little cottage with three others and all the goings on. The story is rather sweet, not much really big happens, it's a bit of a slow burner but sometimes that's what you need, but in saying that it is actually a rather complicated story, it's just written and directed quite simply so it's easy and a pleasure to watch. Mark Duplass is not an actor I have seen before, but he has a nice presence on screen, Emily Blunt is her usual exceptional self, but it's Rosemarie Dewitt who steals the show I think, she has plenty of great scenes and she handles her difficult and really not that likable character very well, most of the things I've seen her in she has been good, she seems like a very natural actress, I do hope that she gets a little more recognition and she is cast in more well known films.

I was surprised to find out that a lot of the film was improvised, the story seemed like it would have been one where things were planned out, but then at the same time I guess it is a film which would quite easily be improvised, and knowing that makes the actors performances even better, it's a crime films like this go somewhat unnoticed, because in my opinion I think Dewitt delivers an award worthy performance, but sometimes it's a movie being small and unknown which makes it special.

It's funny, it's touching, it's dramatic, it's everything an indie film lover would enjoy in a movie, I really do highly recommend you catch this movie while you can, it's a real charmer.

I hope you guys enjoy it. :)

This film is about a man who gets invited to a country house by his best friend, where he sleeps with his best friend's sister after a drunken night.

"Your Sister's Sister" is close to a single location film with a minimal number of characters. Most of the film takes place in a house with only three people. For a film like this to be good, either the characters have to be interesting, or the plot has to be emotionally intense. "Your Sister's Sister" is unfortunately neither. The plot lacks tension or emotional climax. It is just too plain to sustain attention or interest. Mark Duplass portrays an unlikable loser, and yet he gets all the adoration from the two sisters which is rather unbelievable. Rosemarie DeWitt plays a selfish woman, and she is not likable either. Emily Blunt's character is the only interesting character, but she is not enough to save the uninteresting plot or characters. It is unfortunate that "Your Sister's Sister" is an underwhelming drama, as it could have been a lot more than it currently is.

"Your Sister's Sister" is an indie romantic dramedy. One that tries to say so much with so little; "little" in terms of story and setting. It's a dialogue driven film about relationships. Jack (Mark Duplass) is depressed, mourning the loss of his brother. His friend Iris (Emily Blunt) sends him up to her father's cottage for some alone time and beautiful scenery.

Beautiful scenery there was plenty of; but not so much alone time. Unbeknownst to either of them, Iris's sister, Hannah (Rosemary Dewitt), was also retreating to their father's cottage for some alone time in the wake of an upsetting break-up. Two lonely people and an entire bottle of tequila lead to one inevitable place. In the morning, Iris arrives.

Duplass is fairly adept at comedy so he was able to navigate his way around two attractive sisters with a few well-earned laughs. There are more laughs during the description of Iris's boyfriends (each wears skinny jeans, skinnier than the next). As mentioned, this is a dialogue driven film which makes it or breaks it. For the most part it does the job and effectively introduces us to the three characters, but the common complaint that the dialogue is pretentious is certainly accurate.

The characters are real enough, if not a bit extreme in their ways, that likability isn't a huge factor. Although, Emily Blunt's character does get preachy when things don't go her way. She, and the audience, are thrown for a loop when a twist is introduced half-way through the film. At first I was relieved that the film was going to be about something other than just the relationships of these three people.

But ultimately "Your Sister's Sister" is just about the sister's relationship and their relationship with Jack. An ambiguous ending can certainly be welcome and interesting, but if you don't quite care enough about the relationships to begin with then the ending arrives just a beat too early.

I've struggled in the past with Mumblecore movies like Your Sister's Sister because it takes truly world-class talent in order to make improv dialogue feel natural to me. It always feels so clunky, and this movie was no exception. From the start, while I could tell a few of these lines were written, so much of the dialogue had that awkward kind of delivery that made it clear to me that the actors were sort of fishing for the right thing to say. Then when the drama of this movie started, I was mildly annoyed because it felt like the kind of uncomfortable relationship stuff that never works for me. Yet there was something more to this plot, and when the extra piece of the puzzle was unlocked, for some reason I found myself invested. I was interested in seeing where this story would take me and how they might resolve it. The complex breakdown and rebuilding of these close relationships worked for me, probably because I love the actors in this cast even when they are stumbling through improvised dialogue. I think the ending was timed just right to complete the story they were telling in Your Sister's Sister without taking it any further than necessary. I kind of grudgingly liked the film, despite some of my struggles with the genre, but I won't ever seek it out again.

My rating: 88/100

I ended up seeing this movie at the Toronto film fest in a rather circuitous way but I'm awfully glad I did.

Nary a car chase nor explosion, but instead a quiet and thoughtful film. It touches on relationships, death, siblings, betrayal, unrequited love, honesty, fears, and forgiveness… and does so in a very believable and refreshing way.

Most of the movie takes place at a secluded rustic waterfront cottage, a family cabin that Iris (Emily Blunt) has suggested her 'bestie', Jay (Mark Duplass) visit to clear his head; he's still emotionally stuck at the one year anniversary of his brother's death.

The secluded locale - without phones, computers and the usually daily distractions - is the conduit which allows the abundance of emotions and introspective feelings bubble up and expose themselves to a trio of characters connected in various and interesting ways.

These three individuals are both frustrating with their flaws, yet endearing with their fragility and weaknesses. How easy it is to identify with all of them! … which can perhaps be attributed to the impromptu conversation Director Lynn Shelton nurtured and encouraged from the mere 70 page script. She confessed that 75% of the dialogue was improvised allowing a unique honesty to develop within each character, thanks to a stellar cast.

I'm thankful Shelton stuck around Toronto for this third screening – she's originally from Seattle which is where this was filmed - and was more than willing to open up to the audience at a post Q&A where we heard her speak passionately and reflectively about the 12 day shoot (wow!) with almost no funding and how she lucked in to Emily Blunt coming on board (thanks to a shared agent) who was keen on the challenge and experience. Also it was nice to hear that during the festival the film had found distribution through IFC, and that cast and crew would now be compensated for this wonderful collaboration.

This film's a winner to me. I hope you have an opportunity to see it.

This is the first time I have ever felt so strongly about a movie to write a review. I watched it on an airplane yesterday and cannot stop thinking about the characters. I can't get over how real they were and how great the acting was. I laughed and cried and wanted to be friends with them. The end kills me though! I need a sequel!! Or I've even kept imagining a television series. I would LOVE to be able to continue watching these characters and see their lives play out. When I saw the preview, I thought, hmm this should be interesting with just 3 people in the movie pretty much the whole time, but I seriously loved it and thought it was brilliant. I didn't want it to end!

We're not in Hollywood blockbuster big-budget-explosion-land anymore. Apparently there are other ways to wash away the dull moments without explosions and gigantic budgets. The plot begins as a simple weekend in the country. The dialog is mostly unscripted. Shooting without a big Hollywood budget and a crazy tight schedule, Your Sister's Sister holds our interest with the relationships of the characters. Take two sisters and one love interest and you've got the classic play of betrayal and forgiveness, the rivalry that's only paired with siblings, love that's not returned, and all sorts of human relatable fears. This is the kind of film that stays in your head long after the credit roll.

i've seen several films that were just played out by one character or two , such as "Conversations with Other Women (2005)", "The Man from Earth (2007)" and "The Sunset Limited (2011)", but they were all so good that i never got bored from the very beginning to the very end. these three movies were all with great dialog and just because their dialogues were so alive and true, the dialogues themselves had become the storyline, the scenarios and the plots. but sadly, this movie totally missed the mark and turned out to be one of most boring movies i've ever watched. the location was Seattle, the two women one with English accent, one with American and they claimed to be sisters? half-sisters? how come two sisters grew up together would have different accent? this was such a bad casting job. i don't want get into details of this movie's flaws, i just want you guys to read all the reviews with the lower or lowest scores, those reviews would tell you what were wrong about this movie and then, you'd know how stupid and how ridiculous this movie was.

It raises very deep issues a movie that you have to watch with proper psychology. cancer love and love forgiveness difficult movie

This is soooooo not my kind of movie, but it had good reviews so I decided to give it a go. And I'm really surprised I liked it. It's the typical indie "relationship" flick with a lot of talking and not much else, something I would usually find boring and uninteresting. A lot of critics seem to hate the improvised dialogue but I thought that actually brought something new here and helped the movie being different from the rest. Good acting helped as well and in the end, I found myself enjoying the whole thing unfold. Definitely not for everyone and I'm not sure I'd recommend it but I'm glad I gave it a go.

Even though Your Sister's Sister is set mostly in the open air of a secluded area of a Puget Sound island, it feels a bit claustrophobic because of the very small cast. There are only three characters who perform 99% of the film's interactions and there are only so many combinations a screenplay can invent to pair two of them off at any given time. There are long, drawn out conversations which have an improvisational feeling about them and are enjoyable to sit back and watch. Audiences conditioned to expect quick cuts, brief sequences, and pointed dialogue may grow impatient with the extended length of scenes, but for those who relish real situations and characters who take more than a few minutes to develop will enjoy getting to know these people, quirks and all.

Jack (Mark Duplass) appears, just by looking at him, to be having a rough time. There are bags under his eyes, he has a few extra pounds, probably from too much booze, he is unemployed, and social conversations he attempts to contribute to have a way of ending awkwardly and uncomfortable for all in the room. His brother died a year ago and he still has no idea how to move on from that. His best friend happens to be his deceased brother's ex-girlfriend Iris (Emily Blunt). Perhaps this is Jack's way of hanging on to something his brother once had. Iris cares for Jack and after one of his completely inappropriate diatribes, she orders him to get on his old bike, peddle down to the Seattle ferry, and go spend a week alone in the woods at her father's cabin. Perhaps some solitude and introspection will kick him out of his funk.

The cabin is not empty though. Someone else with life problems decided to squirrel away there; this is Iris's sister, Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt). Jack and Hannah recognize a bit of themselves in each other, mainly the self loathing bits, and realize that first night together at the cabin that talking about your problems to a stranger over a bottle of tequila is oddly cathartic. Hannah just walked out of a very long-term relationship with her girlfriend and all of their long-term plans they had together. Both Jack and Hannah are searching for what they should do next in life, where to go, and how to change to get there; so maybe this is why they drunkenly end up in bed together.

The film sets itself up to go in many directions. It could have been self-destructive depression for Jack. It could have been a modern west coast version of Walden for lost souls. However, it chose to become a somewhat comedic love triangle. Iris shows up at the cabin early the next morning and Jack decides she does not need to know what happened last night with Hannah. Each of them maintains their own respective agendas and watching them emerge and conflict with one another is amusing and intriguing to wonder how it may play out. Jack is nervous about the truth being revealed, Iris has her own secrets, and Hannah may be trumping them all. This talk about secrets makes Your Sister's Sister sound devious and manipulative but it is not; somehow, the script keeps the atmosphere light and airy.

Writer/director Lynn Shelton has worked with Mark Duplass previously (Humpday) and the summer of 2012 appears to be his emergence to a wider indie public. He has three films in theaters simultaneously (Your Sister's Sister, Safety Not Guaranteed, People Like Us) and reminds me of Jessica Chastain from 2011 who came out of nowhere and seemed to be in a new release every single weekend. British actress Emily Blunt keeps her accent for this film and the plot noticeably includes a few sentences as to why that is. Her being British is not necessary to the film so waiting to see how they end up explaining away her accent causes a bit of an eye roll but it is not too distracting. Rosemarie DeWitt comes out the winner of the three. She has the benefit of playing the most well written character and she has the acting chops to pull it off. Jack is more the clumsy oaf while Iris is more the sounding board for his issues, but Hannah is in on both of their secrets and therefore benefits screen time wise.

Your Sister's Sister is much better than its recent cinematic cousin Safety Guaranteed and aims for more depth in its characters. The film lacks any particular punches which may have catapulted it into more profound waters; however, it is a worthwhile indie film to enjoy in an air conditioned theater on a hot day when the just the thought of another version of Spiderman will not do.

Smart film. Smart dialog. Smart characters. No stereotypes. Not a cliché-driven romantic comedy, which obviously put off some of those who reacted negatively.

From start to finish, the roles and situations develop in unpredictable ways that never seem false. There must have been a lot of improvisation go into the script, because the conversations never sound false, and the characters all act and react in ways that could not be more natural.

It is funny without being silly, and it is sad at times in ways that measure the depth of the relationships. Great stuff!

"You're supposed to have alone time and now it's like double whammy." After the death of his brother Jack (Duplass), Iris (Blunt) wants to help him relax so she invites him to stay at her families island home. When he shows up he is surprised to see her sister already there. After a drunken night Iris shows up. Then the fun begins. I do have to say that I thought this was an OK movie but I think it is geared more toward women. This is another very real love story that deals with some pretty intense issues as far as relationships go. I would compare the humor and style of this to the movie "Friends With Kids" so if you liked that movie then you will most likely enjoy this one as well. The acting is very good which really drives the movie and you really feel for the characters throughout. This is the kind of movie where you really aren't sure who is right and wrong, and that really helps the movie also. For me this is not really a movie that can be watched over and over but it's worth watching once. Again though I think the movie is geared more toward women. Overall, a good one time watch and if you liked "Friends With Benefits" then you will like this. I give it a B.

Sometimes there just isn't an aspirin big enough . . .

If you're a love sick, lonely freshman, than by all means rent this with your dorm buddies and talk amongst yourselves in endless clichés about love and limits on love and on and on and on . . .

For the rest of us, avoid at all costs.

When I read that the actors ad-libbed most of the dialogue, that was all I needed to read in explanations about the dribble. I'm sure it was all meant to be profound, but it just came across as amazingly sophomoric.

*** Potential Spoiler ***

And what is it about films where some fat slob guy, with virtually no redeeming qualities still has a sharp hotties still want him? I live in the real world and I don't see that very often.

I really enjoyed this movie. I've never written a review before, but had to for this one. Filmed in 12 days? Unbelievably well done. The interaction of the three main characters was s-o...r-e-a-l. Emily Blunt (love her accent), Rosemarie Dewitt and Mark Duplass effortlessly became three characters who could be anyone you know in your own town. The chemistry of their different relationships with each other was fresh and flawless, especially as they evolved. The comedic moments were well delivered, and the pulling-at-the-heartstrings moments, very real. The rustic cottage and waterfront location in Seattle where most of the movie took place was just beautiful. From Filming to Sound, my hat is off to Lynn Shelton the Writer and Director, and the entire cast and crew. I will enjoy watching this again. Thank you!