There are many small and poignant moments in “Your Sister’s Sister,” but the most ingenious thing about the film might be its title. Those three words perfectly summarize the tricky and unchanging nature of the relationship between Jack (Mark Duplass), his friend Iris (Emily Blunt) and her older sister Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt), the characters who have the film almost entirely to themselves.
The connections among the three are supposed to be obvious, but they intersect for the first time while they all have their own secrets to deal with. Jack is quietly mourning the recent death of his brother. Iris sympathetically offers to let him stay alone in her family cabin, because that’s the kind of thing she does as his supposedly platonic best friend. Jack arrives at the cabin and meets Hannah, who has beaten him there to do her own grieving for the seven-year relationship she just ended.
Hannah is a lesbian, but after she spends the night sharing more than a few drinks with Jack, they’re both willing to temporarily overlook that. Jack talks her into bed without being pushy or inconsiderate. They both play it off as an experimental extension of their unexpected bonding.
What they don’t expect is that Iris will show up unannounced the next morning, and be curious to learn how her sister and her secret crush became so chummy so quickly. Jack and Hannah agree to not mention the previous night, but they aren’t necessarily in agreement over why, exactly, they shouldn’t.
From the start, “Your Sister’s Sister” has a loose, improvisational feel. The actors stumble through long conversations that are meant to eventually get a plot going, and the humor is obscured with all the other sentiments. That reserved realism continues even when the romantic complications start. When Jack and Hannah have sex – which we see in its very brief entirety – it’s not at all the romp they expect it to be. It’s unglamorous and disappointing, and we can almost imagine that Iris wouldn’t be upset if she knew how it really went down. The reasons underlying the cover-ups and evasive arguments that follow are messier than those behind the actions that start them.
We can easily see how these miscommunications could have been blown up into an overdrawn sitcom. But this story – set mostly in the damp, serene woodlands outside Seattle – keeps itself grounded. The most powerful emotions here remain unspoken even in the end, especially those between the sisters. Blunt and DeWitt have an easy, familial banter, and their best moments come when we expect the sisters to be especially bitter toward one another. Instead, they effortlessly push their issues aside because, well, that’s what families can do.
“Your Sister’s Sister” doesn’t posit any revelations about how relationships can be renewed or mended. It’s about connections that exist, and people who only have to reaffirm them – and realize how lucky they are to be able to do so.
