After crafting one of our favorite (and most darkly uncomfortable) yuletide favorites over the last few years with White Reindeer, director Zach Clark is back with the new film Little Sister. Executive produced by Joe Swanberg, the film follows a family re-connecting, then things get a little strange. Ahead of a release in October, the first compelling trailer has now arrived.
We said in our review, “Saying Zach Clark‘s Little Sister being called a comedy does a disservice to the film seems like a slight on the genre. I know. But I don’t mean it that way. What this label does — even if it’s clarified with the word “dark” — is build an expectation that’s able to hurt the film’s true appeal. Clark and Melodie Sisk‘s script is definitely a drama first: a tough familial drama consisting of broken souls seeking an avenue to mend fences and remember what it was like to be whole. The humor enhances this drive by lightening the weightiness of the Lunsfords’ struggle as well as endearing them as a relatable group not so different from our own families regardless of our personal issues possibly not matching their immense tragedy.”
Check out the trailer below for the film starring Addison Timlin, Ally Sheedy, Keith Poulson, Barbara Crampton and Peter Hedges.
October, 2008. Young nun Colleen (Addison Timlin) is avoiding all contact from her family, until an email from her mother announces, “Your brother is home.” On returning to her childhood home in Asheville, NC, she finds her old room exactly how she left it: painted black and covered in goth/metal posters. Her parents (Ally Sheedy and Peter Hedges) are happy enough to see her, but unease and awkwardness abounds. Her brother (Keith Poulson) is living as a recluse in the guesthouse since returning home from the Iraq war. During Colleen’s visit, tensions rise and fall with a little help from Halloween, pot cupcakes, and GWAR. Little Sister is a sad comedy about family – a schmaltz-free, pathos-drenched, feel good movie for the little goth girl inside us all.
Little Sister opens at Metrograph in New York on October 14th and The Arena Cinema in Los Angeles on October 28th, and will expand from there.