Beautiful Frauds

Washingtonian Film Picks: Week of June 14, 2012

The biggest film event of this week is undoubtedly Silverdocs, the annual celebration of all things documentary opening Monday at the AFI Silver. We’ll have reviews of selected films and a roundup of critics’ picks coming soon, but for now, here are the can’t-miss movies for this weekend.

Your Sister’s Sister

The fourth feature from indie director Lynn Shelton is the first to feature bona fide star power (in the form of Emily Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt)—and that’s not the only sign that Shelton may be on the verge of becoming a recognizable name herself. The writer/director takes her usually keen ear for natural dialogue (developed through improvisations by her actors), and creates a story that’s insightful and remarkably polished for a film in which so much is off the cuff. Her previous features often had the ragged qualities of microbudget indies, with the shaky handheld cameras and less experienced performers that may keep some viewers away, but this latest is accessible without ever compromising her usual intimacy. The story centers on Jack (Mark Duplass), a bit of a sad sack having trouble processing the grief from his brother’s death a year earlier. He heads to the woods for some time to think, at the behest of his best friend, Iris, who offers up her family’s secluded cabin for his use. But when he arrives, he finds Iris’s sister Hannah there dealing with her own recent loss. Thanks to a bottle of tequila, things become intimate in a hurry between the two former strangers, which creates further complications when Iris shows up the next morning.

View the trailer. Opens tomorrow at E Street and Bethesda Row.