Your Sister's Sister: Familial Trouble in a Cloudy Paradise

Your Sister’s Sister

Written and Directed By: Lynn Shelton

Starring: Mark Duplass, Rosemarie DeWitt, and Emily Blunt

Director of Photography: Benjamin Kasulke, Editor: Nat Sanders, Production Designer: John Lavin, Original Music: Vince Smith

            Rosemarie DeWitt doesn’t need dialogue. The unconsciously beautiful actress, perhaps best recognized as the titular character of Rachel Getting Married, seems to transcend scripts with her ability to shoot her eyes across the room. She never goes for big dramatic scenes; her best moments are the way she moves the hand across the table, or fixes her hair, or simply moves in an unexpected way. Even after delivering the “big monologue” in Your Sister’s Sister, it’s the emotion registered in her face that gave me chills.

            And given that Your Sister’s Sister is mainly an improvised film (more on that later), it’s no wonder that DeWitt shines throughout this amusing and often touching comedy that sadly shoots itself in the foot (definitely more on that later). The film comes from Lynn Shelton, last seen bringing us the odd and fascinatingly fresh Humpday, which followed two best friends who dared each other to make a gay porn. Both Humpday and Your Sister’s Sister start off with premises that sound not too far from the world of Judd Apatow, but as soon as you enter them, you understand what makes her fresh.

The Color Wheel: Like Fucked-Up Brother, Like Fucked-Up Sister

The Color Wheel

Directed By: Alex Ross Perry

Written By: Carlen Altman and Alex Ross Perry

Starring: Carlen Altman, Alex Ross Perry, Bob Byington, Ry Russo-Young, Roy Thomas, and C. Mason Wells

Director of Photography: Sean Price Williams, Editor: Alex Ross Perry

            If one were to just look at a description of The Color Wheel on paper, one would expect the next film in the often unimaginative mumblecore movement. The writer-director-actor, Alex Ross Perry has been linked before with Joe Swanberg and Andrew Bujalski. C. Mason Wells co-worte and starred in Swanberg’s LOL. Ry Russo-Young is another one of the mumblecore filmmakers and has a small role here. And the film’s plot involves a lot of dialogue about 20-somethings trying to figure out their lives. But it only takes the first image of 16mm black and white grain and the soul songs of the 1970s for The Color Wheel to transport us to a different world. We’re not in Kansas anymore.

            It’s not that Perry’s film is completely stripped of any relation to the mumblecore movement, but The Color Wheel has much more on its mind, both visually and thematically, than those of his filmmaking generation’s counterparts. Perry made a small if notable dent in filmmaking with his first film, Impolex (Less of an adaptation of Thomas Pychon’s Gravity’s Rainbow than a parody of its cult status), but he launches himself into a unique stratosphere of filmmakers to watch with this abrasive and uniquely bold comedy about sibiling-hood. 

Martha Marcy May Marlene: Terror of a Fragmented Mind

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Written and Directed By: Sean Durkin
Starring: Elizabeth Olsen, John Hawkes, Sarah Paulson, Hugh Dancy, Brady Corbet, Julia Garner, and Louisa Krause.
Director of Photography: Jody Lee Lipes, Editor: Zachary Stuart-Pontier, Production Designer: Chad Keith, Original Music: Daniel Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans
Rated: R for things rather not spoiled.

            If you go see the independent thriller, Martha Marcy May Marlene, which you most definitely should, I want you to sit as close to the screen as possible. Not because I want you to hurt your neck (in that case, go a few rows back), but I want you to be engulfed by the film's intense close-ups, which will put you in the most psychologically uncomfortable position possible. I want you to really feel each loud sound that disrupts this film full of silences. I want you to feel as paranoid as its main character, feeling that any moment of calm can be instantly destroyed by unknown forces creeping just outside the frame.

            Martha Marcy May Marlene is the latest in a series of independent features from the United States that appear to be ushering in a new wave of smartly composed films that reject the DIY mumblecore genre in favor of a cinema of haunting compositions and dynamic narratives. Although the film is directed by newcomer Sean Durkin, some of the other names in the credits show the evolving filmmaking collective: a producer of the film is Antonio Campos, who shot the haunting surveillance thriller Afterschool, and that film’s director of photography Jody Lee Lipes also create haunting shadow filled frames here. But here it is Mr. Durkin, as well as his impressive cast led by Elizabeth Olsen, that leads what is an intensely intimate character study in the guise of a mystery that does less conventional scares and more spine-tingling chills.

New York Film Festival: Sean Durkin's Martha Marcy May Marlene

Martha Marcy May Marlene

A Film By Sean Durkin

USA

            If you go see the independent thriller, Martha Marcy May Marlene, which you most definitely should, I want you to sit as close to the screen as possible. Not because I want you to hurt your neck (in that case, go a few rows back), but I want you to be engulfed by this film full of intense close-ups that will put you in the most uncomfortable position possible. I want you to really feel each loud sound that disrupts this  film full of silences. I want you to feel as paranoid as its main character, feeling that any moment of calm can be instantly destroyed by unknown forces creeping just outside the frame.

            Martha Marcy May Marlene is the latest in a series of independent features from the United States that appear to be ushering in a new wave of smartly composed films that reject the DIY mumblecore genre in favor of a cinema of haunting compositions and dynamic narratives, but still at the independent level. Although the film is directed by newcomer Sean Durkin, some of the other names in the credits show the evolving filmmaking collective: a producer of the film is Antonio Campos, who shot the haunting surveillance thriller Afterschool, and that film’s director of photography Jody Lee Lipes also create haunting work here (as well as in the coming-of-age comedy Tiny Furniture). But here it is Mr. Durkin, as well as his impressive cast led by Elizabeth Olsen, that leads what is an intensely intimate character study in the guise of a mystery that does less conventional scares and more spine-tingling chills.