Sister (2004)

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Director:

Daniel Mulloy

Writer:

Daniel Mulloy (writer)

Release Date:

5 August 2005 (UK)

Genre:

Drama | Short

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Charlotte Davies	...	Sister
Andrew Phan	...	Brother

Runtime:

5 min

Country:

UK

Language:

Spanish | English

Color:

Color

Company:

Sister Films

Interesting but the lack of help in understanding it will turn some viewers off

As his sister waits at the bus stop, a young man hurtles down a hillside just in time to catch the bus to school – the only one in this area of rural Wales. However once on the bus he starts to get changed and ignore the bothering from his younger sister – but his problems only get worse as others get on the bus as well.

Opening with a scene that crashes our main character together with a lamb trying to walk for the first time we are left with the knowledge that this short has "something to say™" but will not say it in an easy to follow way. And for me this was the biggest problem – I just didn't get it. I understood the theme of the brother standing up for himself for the first time and perhaps this being connected with the death of his mother (hence the lamb's mother later in the film) but it was all delivered in such a manner that made it impossible to understand without doing a lot of guessing for yourself. There is nothing wrong with a film allowing viewers to do the work themselves but this one appeared to be character driven and letting us make up the characters for ourselves was a bit of an ask.

Outside of this it is worth seeing because it is convincing and quite naturally shot, with realistic characters (mostly) and good direction that makes good use of the limited location. A little bit more detail, a little bit more development and, at the risk of making myself look like a fool (too late), a little more help in understanding would have been useful. Worth seeing because others have gushed about it, but I thought it needed more substance and a little less "deep meaning".