Movie Box Review

THE LEAGUE is no longer the best sitcom on TV that no one's ever heard of.  The show has become consistently, increasingly popular, so much so that it's no longer riding in the ratings on the coat-tails of its FX lead-in It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia.  League's numbers in the 18-49 demo are up around 30% from last year, and it's already been renewed for a 4th season.

This is a happy development, as The League remains one of the rudest, funniest shows on TV.  It's a combination of 3 different comedy subgenres:  the Seinfeld/Curb Your Enthusiasm cleverness of multiple, seemingly random storylines that manage to converge by the end of the half-hour (Jeff Schaefer, who created the show with his wife Jackie Marcus Schaeffer, is a Seinfeld/Curb veteran), the Judd Apatow school of "giving shit to your buddies" humor (Seth Rogen even showed up as a guest-star this season), and the improvisational mumblecore style of indie film (cast regulars Mark Duplass and Katie Aselton--also married to one another--are writer/directors of indies like The Puffy Chair, Cyrus and The Freebie as well as actors).

The League rotates around the yearly travails of a fantasy football league, and although recent episodes have

moved far afield from that topic (including the season's highlight, a Thanksgiving episode featuring Jeff Goldblum and Sarah Silverman that may have been the filthiest, funniest half-hour ever to air on TV without any serious four-letter words or nudity), the 1-hour season finale, written by the Schaefers, returned to the main storyline, which is as always the battle among the friends to win the Shiva trophy and avoid the dreaded loser's Sacko and the year of constant humiliation that comes with it.  In the course of the hour, the scandal of the league's fraudulent draft finally came to light thanks to Kevin (Stephen Rannazzisi)'s daughter's class project, Ruxin (Nick Kroll) suffered a minor and quickly-healed stroke, Kevin scored some meaningful victories, and best of all, Ruxin's sociopathic brother-in-law Rafi (Jason Mantzoukas) made an appearance to attempt a mercy-killing on Ruxin, repeatedly threaten Andre (Paul Scheer) with knife violence and make several seductive moves on Ruxin's unimpressed nurse.  Unfortunately, there was no further news on Taco (Jon Lajoie)'s plan for Neckflix, which would send subscribers (stolen) ties to allow for an endless rotation of neckwear, and actually didn't sound like such a bad idea.

The League has a lot of funny writing and/or improvising (a great little scene in the finale had Taco insisting that Ruxin take a business dinner--which he used as a verb--with him to discuss his insane "business" TacoCorp, leading to a splended foray into the kind of trendy restaurant where you eat in the dark--complete with night-vision goggles), but more than anything it's a showcase for its wildly talented cast, who make the nastiest, most scheming, insulting and downright awful of friendships seem very close to lovable, with Aselton's Jenny--Kevin's wife and a member of the League--maybe the most underappreciated female lead on television.  The show sometimes struggles to work in its product placements (Bud Light, anyone?), as well as its football-related cameos, but those become part of the joke as well. 

The arrival of football season is always welcome, but not least in recent times because it means The League is back on the air.  It's great to see that this little-show-that-could, as it turns out, really can.

Lynn Shelton's Humpday in 2009 was one of the most engaging pictures to come out of the mumblecore movement ("mumblecore," for the uninitiated = ultra-low-budget, small scale film with dialogue mostly improvised by the actors), and her new film YOUR SISTER'S SISTER, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last night, confirms that she's probably the most mainstream (that's not an insult) of the subgenre's practitioners.

Shelton, more than most of the mumblecore filmmakers, seems to be trying to find a middle ground between pure indie and popular moviemaking (after Humpday, she directed an episode of Mad Men, which with Matthew Weiner's iron-bound control over every detail, had to be a very different kind of experience).  The premise of Your Sister's Sister is commercial enough to be a mainstream comedy:  Jack (Mark Duplass, himself a mumblecore auteur with fine pictures like The Puffy Chair and Cyrus to his credit) is still trying to get over the loss of his brother a year before.  His brother's longtime love Iris (Emily Blunt) is Jack's best friend, and she lends him her family's cabin so he can have some alone time for introspection.  When he gets there, though, he finds Iris' half-sister Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt) there--she's a vegan lesbian who's just broken up with her own longtime lover.  The two are vulnerable, increasingly drunk, and... well, what you'd expect happens.  The next one to show up unexpectedly, of course, is Iris, and now the three are all hiding huge secrets from each other.  

The mumblecore technique of long, improvisatory takes which are then edited into a coherent story can yield moments of startling reality, but often the films are also meandering and unfocused.  Your Sister's Sister, though, is bright and witty from the start (a hilarious scene where Jack disrupts the 1-year memorial gathering for his brother).  Duplass's expertise with this isn't a surprise, considering his loads of experience, but Blunt and DeWitt are better known for their scripted abilities, and they manage the new challenge wonderfully; the scenes of the two sisters together, especially, are filled with believably intimate moments.

For any good film produced in this style, the editor is worthy of special praise, and here that belongs to Nat Sanders, who also did Humpday, as well as the excellent The Freebie, with Duplass's wife Katie Aselton behind the camera.  (A literal parenthetical note:  The League, FX's comedy about a group of friends in a fantasy football league, stars Duplass and Aselton and may be the most underappreciated comedy on TV.)  The photography by Benjamin Kasulke (also a Freebie/Humpday veteran) is quite handsome for the tiny budget these pictures permit.  Ultimately, though, this is Shelton's show, and as she did in Humpday, she manages to take a contrived situation and treat it with great humanity and appreciation for detail, while not ignoring the opportunity for big laughs.  

Your Sister's Sister isn't going to do Bridesmaids business, and it moves at a pace that some audiences may find careful, but it's a funny, satisfying comedy-drama that's true to its process while delivering entertainment to a group larger than the people who made it.  It's one of the festival's pleasant surprises.