Your Sister's Sister

Year 15, Day 70 - 3/11/23 - Movie #4,371

BEFORE: Rosemarie DeWitt carries over from "Nobody Walks" and now we do have some other contenders for the most appearances this year, a few people who are known for appearing in romances have made it to the year-end list already, like Ethan Hawke, Kate Hudson, Keira Knightley, Andie MacDowell and Lea Thompson all had strong showings in the romance chain (or for some of those actors, it was two romance films and one other film from January - whatever.). None of them, however, have been able to catch up with Dale Dickey, who is still out in front for the year with five appearances.  Can that be enough to win 2023?  I feel like a few people, like Walter Cronkite or Spike Lee have enough appearances scheduled that they could challenge her for the title.  Talk-show hosts, newscasters, and U.S. presidents always have the inside track when it comes to documentaries, and I've got about 20 docs coming up after Easter. 

But just TWO more romances after this one, so by Monday I should be done with that topic, thank GOD.  I'm spending most of my day today at the movie theater, which is hosting the New York International Children's Film Festival - but it's all anime today, which really isn't my thing. 

It's Day 11 of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming, and today's theme is "Musicals" - I was raised on a steady diet of these as a boy, so I should do well. Here's the line-up:

6:45 am "The Broadway Melody" (1929)

8:30 am "Swing Time" (1936)

10:15 am "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" (1954)

12:00 pm "Gigi" (1958)

2:00 pm "The Music Man" (1962)

4:45 pm "A Star Is Born" (1954)

8:00 pm "An American in Paris" (1951)

10:00 pm "West Side Story" (1961)

12:45 am "Fiddler on the Roof" (1971)

4:00 am "Cabaret" (1956)

Boom, baby, 9 out of 10 today already seen! (Thanks, Mom!). The only one I haven't seen in "The Broadway Melody". This brings me up to 66 seen out of 124, now I'm back up over half with 53.2%.

THE PLOT: Iris invites her friend Jack to stay at her family's island getaway after his brother's death.  Jack's drunken encounter with Iris' sister Hannah at their remote cabin kicks off a revealing stretch of days. 

AFTER: A few of this week's films were released in the 2010's, like "When in Rome", and "Something Borrowed" and also "Nobody Walks", so we've got a little mini-portrait of what was significant in the romantic relationships of that decade.  Can we draw any conclusions from the trends in those films?  Not really - two of those were very simple comedies about silly things like magical fountains and believing in standing up for yourself and telling the person you love how you feel about them.  A lot of drinking was involved, don't forget that the lead character in "When in Rome" was drinking when she took coins out of that Italian fountain, and the lead character in "Something Borrowed" had been drinking heavily when she slept with her best friend's fiancé.  That trend continues tonight, as Jack was also doing tequila shots when he slept with HIS best friend's sister.  So I don't know, maybe we can draw the conclusion that romantic mishaps tend to come after bouts of heavy drinking?  Yeah, that tracks.  

But this is 2023 now, not 2011, and part of me wants to think, "Well come on, at this point who HASN'T had too much to drink and then slept with their best friend's lesbian sister who's secretly trying to have a baby?"  Right?  Just me?  Based on all the Christmas commercials that ran last year featuring lesbian couples with kids, you have to figure all those babies had to come from somewhere - at least 70% of babies with two mommies probably come from drunken encounters like the one seen here, you just do tequila shots with your sister's best platonic friend, fool around and wait nine months. Easy peasy. 

There are lessons here, but they're the same ones that previous films in the chain have also hammered home - if you have feelings for your best friend, by all means, you have to tell her.  Preferably BEFORE you sleep with her sister, not after.  Also, sharing space together, even for a night or two, is sometimes enough to induce those romantic feelings.  (Even if you both get booked into the same AirBnB, which is very unlikely...). So yeah, this film is kind of a mix of "Something Borrowed" and "Alone Together", if that makes any sense, only with a "Life Partners"-style lesbian twist. Capiche?  But these are really simple love lessons, because obviously you can't accidentally fall for somebody if you're NOT sharing the same house. 

Also, lesbians can't be trusted, but come on, we all knew that one, too, right?  (J.K.).  Across the board, nobody can be trusted when it comes to affairs of the heart, but Hollywood seems to focus on a special mistrust among lesbians, but that's just because the screenwriters don't really know what to DO with them, except to have them mope around after a break-up and then suddenly decide to get pregnant.  Yep, all that somehow constitutes character growth, I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but it does seem to be the fall-back plot in movies.  It doesn't really make sense though - relationship fell apart?  Have a kid, that'll fix things!  

From Jack's perspective, guys are different - when they mess up, they don't just sit around and mope, they do things like go for a long bike ride and camp outside for a week to get their head straight.  Trust me, after a week of camping, I'd agree to just about anything, and sure enough, Jack turns up back at the house and begs for forgiveness from Iris and confesses his love for her all at the same time.  His "I slept with your sister because I can't be with you..." speech is a kind of a master class in apologies, and it kind of calls to mind the rant from "Jerry McGuire".  Really, Iris's response here should really be, "Just shut up. You had me at psychotic criminal."  

It's too bad the film had to delve so far into why the two sisters have different accents - I think it turned out they were only half-sisters, their father had an affair with his secretary so they had different mothers.  Was all this necessary just to explain why one actress has a British accent and the other one doesn't?  Who cares?  

For a film shot in just 12 days and largely improvised, this isn't all that bad.  The cabin seen in the film is somewhere in the San Juan Islands, near Seattle, but still a secret location because the filmmakers promised to never reveal it.  This might count as "mumblecore", I'm still not sure of the exact defining properties of that genre, though. Just be aware that there's no real resolution or decisions made in the end, so the film doesn't really end so much as it STOPS.  And maybe you'll like the point where it stops telling the story, but maybe you won't.  Those are the breaks. And whether this story is all one big contrivance is also kind of up to you - I'm willing to listen to the arguments both for and against. 

Also starring Mark Duplass (last seen in "The One I Love"), Emily Blunt (last seen in "A Quiet Place Part II"), Mike Birbiglia (last seen in "Going the Distance"). 

RATING: 5 out of 10 gluten-free pancakes