First Hit: Not a great film and some situations were well acted and thoughtful.
The film begins with some speeches at a party in a living room about someone who’s been deceased for a year. The persons brother Jack (played by Mark Duplass), still hurting from the loss of his brother, gives a talk about some of the earlier and darker sides of his deceased brother.
The gathered group doesn’t want to hear it, including Iris (played by Emily Blunt) who was the girlfriend of the dead brother. She pulls Jack aside and suggests he get himself together by staying at her family’s cabin on an island in the Puget Sound. He gets on his bike and rides to a ferry, takes the ferry to an island and finds the remote island cabin. Arriving he runs into Iris’s gay sister Hannah (played by Rosemarie DeWitt).
Hannah is at the cabin because she just ended a 7-year relationship and is trying to find herself. They sit down, have a bunch of drinks and end up having sex. Iris arrives the next day to visit Jack unexpectedly and finds her sister there as well.
The untold stories begin to evolve here and the audience is along for the ride. What I liked was the process of how the sisters resolve their issue - it wasn't with a simple “I’m sorry”. There are long walks, moments of ignoring the other person in the room, and alone time. Jack has his own searching to do but his search comes to fruition when he trashes his bike.
It is within these sections of the film where I thought and felt the congruency of the remote scenery and emotional processing each person goes through to resolve what life brings.
Overall, Duplass is good but not great. There are interesting moments when we get a glimpse of an interesting character. Blunt is very good in her role and I enjoy when she is on the screen. She has an ability to hide and expose who she and her character are simultaneously. DeWitt is charming and her interaction with Blunt in the bed scenes are revealing, sweet and joyous to watch. Lynn Shelton wrote and directed this film which is very much a woman’s film with a woman’s point of view.
Overall: I fully enjoyed how the threesome under the direction of Shelton took their time to resolve the issue at hand.