My Little Sister

(Switzerland / 2020 / Directed by Stéphanie Chuat & Véronique Reymond)

Switzerland’s official submission to the Academy Awards, My Little Sister is a tender domestic drama that faces terminal illness with refreshing candor.

Lisa (Nina Hoss), a gifted Berlin playwright, stopped writing on the day that her beloved twin brother (Lars Eidinger) received a leukemia diagnosis. Since then, she’s been living in artistic limbo in Switzerland, where her husband (Jens Albinus) teaches at a prestigious boarding school. Both siblings have always been each other’s muse, and her heart remains in Berlin with her brother. For him, she neglects everything else, and as the demands of Sven’s illness tug her closer to her brother, they contribute to a growing fracture in her marriage and increase her risk of losing her husband.

A New York Times Critic’s Pick, My Little Sister is “distinguished by a modest style that allows its actors to shine” while offering “neither false uplift nor dreary realism. The photography is bright and lustrous, the tone vital and purposeful. Eidinger plays Sven entirely without self-pity … and Hoss makes Lisa a ball of anxious industry, her denial and distress keeping her in constant motion. … Small in scale and big in heart, My Little Sister believes unwaveringly in the palliative power of art: When medicine can’t heal you, sometimes words can fill the breach.” – Jeannette Catsoulis

Unrated / 1 hr 39 mins.
In German, French, and English with subtitles