Making the case for: Rosemarie DeWitt

So the local celebrity down in Dannervike, New Zealand, Stevee Taylor @Cinematic Paradox, announced a neat, little blogathon last week. Since the award season has already started with some of the critics award, idea is - in her own words - "The subject is Making a Case for Movies that Probably Won't Get Any Awards Recognition this year. Basically, just think of the movies that won't figure highly in awards season, but you think they should. Maybe you want The Dark Knight Rises or Skyfall to get Best Picture. Or maybe you want to look at some performances, like maybe Matthew McConaughey in Killer Joe or Emily Blunt in Looper. You could even look at editing/cinematography/music alone. If you're doing a film, you're not limited to one category to look at. Think creatively." I have been thinking about this performance since the day I saw it and when I saw her description, the first thought that came into my mind was - Rosemarie DeWitt for Your Sister's Sister(2012).

I will not say that I am a big fan of Rosemarie DeWitt because honestly I am not. Not that I do not like her but I haven't seen enough of her movies to say that. Probably like most of us, I first saw her in Rachel Getting Married(2008) and even though Anne Hathaway stole the show, I thought she was equally impressive in it as well. According to IMDb, she was in Cinderella Man(2005) very early in her career which I have seen quite a few times but I do not remember seeing her in it at all and even though I have been meaning to, I still haven't seen Margaret(2011). So practically, Your Sister's Sister(2012) was a second movie I have seen her in and hence it is safe to say that I am not very well versed with her. Now, I am a big fan of Amy Adams. So if she stands in a corner of a room for 2 and half hours and releases it as a movie, there is a good chance that I will still call it great because a) She is Amy Adams and she will find a way to make even standing in a corner look really interesting and b) She is AMY ADAMS. She is freaking gorgeous!! So the point is in case of Rosemarie DeWitt, it takes a really good performance from her for me not only to take notice but to rave about her so much. And she apparently did because when the Independent Spirit Award nominations were announced, people were talking about all the nominations for Silver Linings Playbook(2012) and Beasts of the Southern Wild(2012) or the lack of The Perks of beingWallflower(2012) or Matthew McConaughey getting nominated. Not that I don't care about any of that, but the fact that made me most happy is her getting nominated for Best supporting Actress.

I probably got a little ahead of myself. So let me take a step back and talk about the movie first. A year has passed since the death of Jack's brother but he still is in mourning. For some reason, it looks like he just does not want to let it go. To help him sort out his own emotions and probably find some catharsis in his own company, his brother Tom's ex and his very good friend Iris sends him on her family cabin on an island somewhere Northwest Pacific. When Jack reaches there, he finds someone Iris' sister Hannah already in the house. Hannah also has come to the cabin looking for a solitude since she just had a very serious brake up after a long time relationship. After they overcome the initial awkwardness and drain down the entire bottle of taquilla, they start to kind of bond but eventually end up in bed together. When they wake-up next morning, they find Iris knocking on their door. Even Iris has no idea of Hannah being at the cottage and hence gets a very happy surprize but for some reason Jack thinks it will be a good idea to keep the last night's proceedings a secret from Iris. It turns out that Jack and Iris have feeling for each other that they have never spoken about and even Hannah has a secret that she is keeping from them both. With all these secrets and feelings thrown into the mix, this place of solitariness where Jack and Hannah came hoping to find some answers of their own, creates further more questions for them. Apparently writer-director Lynn Shelton didn't have a traditional script ready for the actors, she never does. Lot of the dialogues spoken in movie were improvisations by the actors themselves, on multiple occasions what we see is the first hand reaction to the words spoken for the first time ever and 4 characters that have significant dialogues are all listed as creative consultants in the credits.

Rosemarie DeWitt plays Hannah. She is just out of seven-year relationship which has been her life for all that time. Now that she ended it, she is not really sure where she wants to go from there. Then she meets this guy and does something terribly selfish without even telling him. She is not a bad person, she probably just did something without thinking much about it or without knowing all the sides of the story in her emotional state. She is smart, she is maybe little smarmy sometimes but not in a harmful way and more importantly, she is a good and loving sister and person. Rosemarie DeWitt displays every single trait of this personality very distinctly in her acting, mainly through her body language. Her acting is very subtle but her face is so expressive that it talks volumes without saying a single word. Probably that was the reason she got Hannh's part but she uses that to perfection. This is probably most evident in scene on their very first night in cabin, alone where Jack comes to see her seating in a hall with a bottle of Vodka. She is kind of playfully curt with him, never giving herself away, constantly keeping him in check. It is like her way of telling him that I maybe vulnerable right now but I am not going to let you take advantage of me. However as it turns out, it's her taking advantage of him. And then after Iris comes and sneaks in her bed in night, we can see that they share a great bond with each other, love to be in each others company but at the same time this battle of the awkward sexual experience between her and Jack is constantly going on at the back of her mind. As I said what she does is extremely selfish and even morally wrong, but the reason I say she is not a bad person is because the earnestness she shows in hanging by Iris, continuously trying to patch up for what she did once Iris finds out.

Even though Emily Blunt hasn't made it big yet as she was expected after The Devil Wears Prada(2006), I can still watch a movie for her. Hopefully, Looper(2012) will provide her some boost. In case of Mark Duplass, this was my first encounter and I can certainly say that I am intrigued. However I will definitely remember Your Sister's Sister as Rosemarie DeWitt's movie. I realize that Supporting Actress pool is really strong this year but I still hope that by the end of this award season, she does get some recognition for this role that she thoroughly deserves. That will basically make this post void and might be the last push I need to push me into the dark, bottomless pit of manic depression. But I guess, I have to choose one or the other. Life isn't always fair, they say.