Jinx Sister 2008

Estranged adult sisters peel back the family secrets and lies in Athina Tsoulis' engaging domestic drama. Sara Wiseman is Laura, who arrives in New Zealand after ten years in LA. Sporting an American accent and dressed for Rodeo Drive, she cuts an incongruous figure in laid-back South Auckland. She warily approaches the house of her sister Maree (Rachel Nash), happily married, heavily pregnant mother of two. Laura's hostility and thinly concealed self-loathing are too much even for this most grounded of earth mothers. While the two spar and reopen old wounds, new events force them into recognising the deceptive nature of the family myths that have shaped their enmity. Warm breezes waft through this psychodrama: there's an appealing ebullience to its picture of bicultural suburbia (lyrically photographed by Rewa Harre). And the Kiwi blokes who stand by these women exude unforced sexiness: they're sensual, good-humoured and kind. — BG