4 out of 5

Directed by: Mattie Do

A simple, but gripping, horror-thriller, Dearest Sister makes due with surprisingly little – light, but effective effects; a small, well-chosen cast; mostly one set; precise dialogue – to achieve the kind of impact most genre-lateral films hope for with flashier concepts and bigger budgets.

Nok (Amphaiphun Phommapunya) is called up from her small village to the capital of Laos, Vientiane, to care for her cousin, Ana (Vilouna Phetmany).  On her way out, she’s playfully chided about finding a white, rich husband and forgetting her roots, and as Nok – arriving at her destination – tip-toes around her sister’s expansive home, dodging tsk-tsk glares from a maid and gardener and not understanding her sister’s Estonian husband, Jakob (Tambet Tuisk), writer / director Do and Phommapunya convey the mixed sense of want and criticality Nok experiences.  We’re very much on her side as Ana snubs her; as the help refuse to let her eat with them; and so we understand when Nok sneaks off with a small amount of money and spends a little on herself.

Ana has taken ill with an unknown disease slowly robbing her of her eyesight, and eventually, there’s a bond between the two women, with Nok’s village remedies carrying some kind of comfort versus the cold, clinical series of doctors Jakob wants Ana to continue visiting.  Ana has also been having visions – off-screen, ghoulish looking blurs – and Nok is willing to listen to her talk about these.  When Nok starts to take a more superior stance towards the maid and gardener, Phommapunya gives it just enough  awareness for it to still come across as tolerable naivety, but when she starts to come into money that she spends rather frivolously on herself instead of sending back to her home, Dearest Sister begins its most effective trick of shifting our sympathies.

The movie is admittedly slow to the punch, and drags Nok’s behaviors out a bit longer than necessary, although it continually keeps us on edge wondering what she’ll do next.  The way she comes into money is also a bit of a plot convenience that’s not really justified, but it works within the small context of the film.

The end sequence is particularly punishing from a tension standpoint, pushing Ana’s nigh-blindness to employ extreme closeups that keep us locked into the scenario – actress Phetmany just as skillful as Amphaiphun at mixing emotional states with expository dialogue to explain it to us – and the movie cuts out at just the right moment to drop the credits on us and keep us waiting to see what Mattie Do does next.