PPeople who find themselves in criminal circumstances generally behave recklessly, if not entirely irrationally. However, it is rare to see individuals reacting to calamity as stupidly as they do in The sister, a British four-part series that premiered on January 22 on Hulu.
Written by Luther creator Neil Cross (based on his novel Burial) and directed by Niall MacCormick, The sister don’t waste time exposing your scenario. In its first five minutes, a series of quick incidents from 2013 and the present reveal that Nathan (Russell Tovey’s years and years) and his acquaintance Bob (Bertie Carvel) were involved in the mysterious death of Elise (Simone Ashley) on New Year’s Eve 2009, and that Nathan subsequently chose not to commit suicide, but instead to ease his guilt by marrying with Elise’s sister agent Holly (Amrita Acharia). Nathan and Bob’s cover-up of Elise’s death, however, is now being ruined by a developer’s plans to dig the forest where they buried the young woman’s body, which forces Bob to appear at Nathan’s door asking for help relocating the remains Elise’s – a meeting that also hints at Nathan’s crazy marriage.
Nathan’s decision to woo Holly, the bereaved sister of the woman he buried in the middle of nowhere, is told in intermittent flashbacks, although none of these scenes succeeded in selling his absurd course of action as credible. By marrying Holly, who decorates his home with pictures of his sister, Nathan chose to atone for his sins by facing them and immersing himself in them daily, for the rest of his life, which seems the opposite of basic human nature. In addition, it is imprudent from a legal point of view, as it keeps you intimately close to the only people who would be interested in arresting you. No matter how you look at it, it’s just stupid, which means that Nathan is immediately considered to be not just a potential demon, but an idiot.
I say “potential” demon because anyone who has seen a murder mystery like this will quickly assume that Nathan’s role in Elise’s death was accidental. The sisterHowever, it takes a long time to detail his story with Holly, his fateful night at a party with Elise and his current efforts to deal with the resurgence of Bob, who is a paranormal expert he met while working at a radio station. Bob’s maiden appearance at Nathan’s door, his long, curly hair and shaggy beard soaked in rain, underlines his dark malevolence and, in no time, he is sending Nathan a CD that should be heard out loud. What does Nathan hear when he turns up the volume? Lots of static punctuated by the sound of a woman declaring: “I’m not dead”.
The frightening suggestion that Nathan and Bob are being haunted by Elise’s ghost takes off from there, albeit in a way that generates zero suspense. Bob tries to convince Nathan that they have to move Elise’s corpse before it is discovered by others, to whom Nathan senselessly opposes. Meanwhile, the program goes back in time to show us how Nathan orchestrated his initial courtship with Holly, filled with hearing her talk about her sister’s unresolved disappearance and meeting her parents – events that make Nathan feel ashamed, if not one. degree that would dissuade him from pursuing his deceptive romance.
even though The sister does not disclose the details of Elise’s death until the middle of the third episode, it always seems that the viewer is three steps ahead of the show. Exacerbating this gap is the small cast of characters, who only go beyond Nathan, Bob and Holly (and flashbacks from Elise) when Officer Jacki (Nina Toussaint-White) is introduced. It turns out that Jacki interviewed Nathan and Bob about Elise’s disappearance when she disappeared, and you don’t know, she’s also Holly’s best friend – and bridesmaid at her wedding to Nathan! Jacki’s complicated presence is planned to the point of causing real moans, and his role in solving the story can be seen from a mile away.
“Even though ‘The Sister’ does not release the details of Elise’s death until halfway through the third episode, it always seems that the viewer is three steps ahead of the show.“
The sister he carries himself with an air of deliberate and somber gravity that implies that he is not aware that he is treading on commonplace territory; each of its elements has been seen before, and in a more surprising and innovative way. Subsequent revelations about Bob are equally banal and absurd, and in their final segments, the show derives from the drama of illogical motivations that still make one want to see each character getting what they deserve. Did I mention that Nathan and Holly are also trying to have a baby by IVF, and that it influences their tense dynamics? The less you say about the added subplot, the better, especially since it has nothing to do with the main plot and only serves to emphasize the general neglect of this endeavor.
Pretending to condemn his protagonist, only to slowly reveal that his protests of innocence and love were genuine, The sister ends up saying nothing about pain, guilt and penance. At the same time, it also has little to offer in terms of supernatural scares, despite the fact that its plot is basically an EC Comics-style chiller. Instead of going overboard Freak show threatens, MacCormick and Cross take the path of brilliantly prestigious TV, thus treating their material with a seriousness that it does not guarantee. The results are exaggerated interpretations of Tovey, Carvel and Acharia and a dark and portentous aesthetic – all birds singing, dark roads in the forest illuminated by headlights and painful looks in mirrors and windows – which are at odds with the action in question.
Dark and stereotyped, The sister it is the type of false-noble case best consumed as background noise while doing something else. Still, it will probably be consoling in its brevity – as Bob says in the truest moment in the series, “It will be over soon.”