Ppeople who find themselves in criminal circumstances often behave unwise, if not irrationally. However, it is rare to see individuals reacting to calamity as badly as they do Sister, a four-part British series that debuts on January 22 on Hulu.
Composed of Luther creator Neil Cross (based on his novel Funeral) and directed by Niall MacCormick, Sister he doesn’t waste time setting his scenario. In his first five minutes, a series of quick incidents from 2013 and now reveal that Nathan (Years and years Russell Tovey) and his acquaintance Bob (Bertie Carvel) were involved in the mysterious death of Elisha (Simone Ashley) on New Year’s Eve 2009 and that Nathan later chose not to commit suicide, but rather to secure his guilt by marrying Elisha’s real estate. agent Sister Holly (Amrita Acharia). However, the cover of Elisha’s death by Nathan and Bob is now destroyed by a developer’s plans to dig up the forests where they buried the young woman’s body, forcing Bob to appear on Nathan’s doorstep asking for help relocating Elisha’s remains. meeting that also indicates Bob in Nathan’s marriage.
Nathan’s decision to cleanse Holly, the grieving brother of the woman he buried in the middle of nowhere, is told in intermittent flashbacks, though none of those scenes successfully sell their nonsensical course of action as credible. By marrying Holly, who is decorating her house with pictures of her sister, Nathan chose to atone for his sins, facing and immersing himself in them daily for the rest of his life, which seems to be the opposite of human nature. the base. . Moreover, it is legally reckless because it keeps it intimately close to the only people who would be interested in catching it. No matter how you look at it, it’s just a simple donkey, which means Nathan is immediately thrown away as not only a potential devil, but also an idiot.
I say demon “potential” because anyone who has seen a murder mystery like this will quickly assume that Nathan’s role in Elisha’s death was accidental. SisterHowever, he spends his sweet time detailing his history with Holly, the fateful evening at a party with Elise and his current efforts to cope with the reappearance of Bob, who is a paranormal expert he met while working at a job. of radio. Bob’s initial appearance on Nathan’s doorstep, his long, thin hair and ragged rain-soaked beard underscores his shadowy curse, and he soon sends Nathan a CD that should be listened to aloud. What does Nathan hear when the volume increases? Lots of static dots punctuated by the sound of a woman declaring, “I’m not dead.”
The scary suggestion that Nathan and Bob are haunted by the ghost of Elisha takes off from there, albeit in a way that generates zero suspense. Bob tries to convince Nathan that he must move Elisha’s body before it is discovered by others, to which Nathan objects senselessly. Meanwhile, the show travels back in time to show us how Nathan orchestrated Holly’s initial courtship, full of hearing her talk about her sister’s unresolved disappearance and meeting her parents – events that make Nathan feel ashamed, if not to an extent that would discourage him from continuing his deceptive romance.
Even if Sister does not reveal the specifics of Elisha’s death until the middle of the third episode, he always feels like the spectator three steps before the show. Exacerbating this shortcoming is the tiny cast of characters, which extends beyond Nathan, Bob and Holly (and Elise’s flashbacks) when police officer Jacki (Nina Toussaint-White) is introduced. It so happens that Jacki interviewed both Nathan and Bob about Elisa’s disappearance when she first disappeared and you don’t know that, she’s also Holly’s best friend – and the bridesmaid at her wedding and to Nathan! Jacki’s complicated presence is designed to provoke real moans, and her role in resolving the story can be seen from a mile away.
“Even if “Sister” does not reveal the specifics of Elisha’s death until the middle of the third episode, she always feels like the spectator three steps before the show.”
Sister he wears an air of deliberate, gloomy gravity, which implies that he does not know that he is walking through a commonplace territory; each of its elements has been seen before and in a more surprising and new form. Subsequent revelations about Bob are equally complicated and absurd, and in its closing segments, the show derives drama from illogical motivations that make someone want to see each character getting their desserts. Did I mention that Nathan and Holly are also trying to have a child through IVF and that this influences their tense dynamics? The less is said about that subplot approached, the better, especially since it has no influence on the primary plot and only serves to emphasize the general negligence of this effort.
Pretending to condemn the protagonist, only slowly revealing his protests of innocence and love as authentic Sister he 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 essentially an EC Comics-style chiller. Instead of going for the exaggeration Creepshow menace, MacCormick and Cross take the prestigious prestigious TV-route, thus treating the material with a seriousness that it does not justify. The results are overworked lead performances from Tovey, Carvel and Acharia and a gloomy and load-bearing aesthetic – all the squeaky birds, the shady forest roads lit by headlights and the painful looks in mirrors and windows – which contradict the action at hand.
Sad and worded, Sister it’s the kind of lying story that is best consumed as background noise while you’re doing something else. Even then, someone will probably caress himself briefly – as Bob says at the show’s truest moment: “It’ll be over soon.”