*CW: This review contains spoilers
Beatrice Bennett
In a small cabin, on a small lake, in the rural countryside lived a man and his wife. They pray to god and live their lives until one day, they become three.
Written and directed by Louisa Connolly-Burnham, Sister Wives is the queer indie short that has quickly gained critical momentum. It was counted as Letterbox’s third highest rated live-action short and, more recently, it was BAFTA longlisted for Best British Short Film. Connolly-Burnham tells a tender story of sapphic longing within the patriarchal structures of Mormon polygamy.
Featuring Connolly-Burnham as Kaidence, Michael Fox (Downton Abbey) as Jeremiah and BAFTA Rising Star winner Mia McKenna-Bruce completing the trio as Galilee, Sister Wives provides a refreshing take on a canon of queer female film. The film provides a contrast to the tendency for brooding landscapes and ultimately tragic heroines.
Its crisp visuals, coupled with an ultimately joyous conclusion, complicates the tradition. As Connolly-Burnham succinctly puts it: “we wanted to give lesbians a happy ending”.
Pacing and elevation
The spare dialogue of Sister Wives risks sinking the short to a monotonous pace. However, the palpable chemistry established between Kaidence and her younger counterpart Galilee puts to bed any such fears.
Indeed, the often-tense breaks in dialogue breathe a new dynamic into Kaidence and Jeremiah’s isolated relationship. This is first realised via Galilee’s introduction to the couple. McKenna-Bruce beautifully punctures the brittle standoff between Fox and Connolly-Burnham with a wide-eyed intensity as her attention darts between the warring duo.
“McKenna-Bruce’s child-like presence almost makes you want to laugh at the absurdity of the situation”
Reminiscent of a Christmas fairy dressed to the nines in frills and bows, McKenna-Bruce’s child-like presence almost makes you want to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. You may well do so, if its implications were not so severe.
In Galilee, Kaidence sees a threat to her marriage, to her relationship with Jeremiah and to herself as a wife and should-be mother. Yet, this proves not to be the case. What ought to have been the destabiliser of Kaidence’s restrictive but orderly existence, becomes the very thing that sets in motion a journey towards selfhood and her own desires.
Themes
Desire pulses throughout the rest of the short. Whether it be the child-like glee Kaidence and Galilee share when Jeremiah is called away on a mission for Christ, or the eroticised act of cooking, Connolly-Burnham and McKenna-Bruce delicately tread this often-tricky path with equal parts abandon and restraint.
“The beautifully muted colourscape of Sister Wives’ imagination”
Nevertheless, a more subtle form of desire which would have further elevated the film is Jeremiah’s voyeuristic tendencies. For example, in the scene in which he spies Galilee and Kaidence making love, the camera moves away from him a second too soon. Though key to centring the women as the ‘true’ romantic pairing, this fleeting observation could have been exploited a little further.
“Desire pulses throughout the rest of the short”
Fox manages admirably in his role as the patriarch. Yet, it would have been nice to see a little more from him. Such focus would have helped to further cement the now-fractured foundations in Jeremiah’s marriage. We mustn’t forget that, though a morally and ethically dubious character, Jeremiah is an equally unhappy man forced by circumstance and expectation into this situation.
In seeing more from Fox, the audience might witness an extra dimension to his character. He could play into the multiple layers of hidden and repressed desire that Sister Wives examines more centrally via its female figures.
Cinematography
Credit must go to director of photography Angela Zoe Neil for the beautifully muted colourscape of Sister Wives’ imagination. The remote location almost becomes a character in and of itself. Even in the most intimate moments which the pair share, Neil’s cinematography and Connolly-Burnham’s direction confirms this world’s constant presence in the lives of its protagonists. The world of Sister Wives grounds its characters as much as it isolates them from a ‘normal’ existence.
“The remote location almost becomes a character in and of itself”
The final moments of Sister Wives are an ode to identity and self-expression. Galilee and Kaidence share a euphoric embrace in the back of a cherry-red sedan, reminiscent of the all-American spirit conjured by a Taylor Swift ‘Getaway Car’ lyric.
Kaidence, clothed in the scarlet dress which had hung forgotten in her closet, fully unties her hair from its customary plait for the first time. Now reunited with Galilee, and underlined by a thrumming rock-like score, the car speeds into the distance.
Ultimately, Sister Wives is a thoughtful and joyous examination of the ties which bind and the lengths we go to free ourselves from them.
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Featured image courtesy of director Louisa Connolly-Burnham. No changes have been made to this image.
