Sven and Lisa are twins – and theater people. He, the older one, is an actor. She, the “little sister,“ writes for the stage. They are well versed in words and emotions, However, they deal less well with Sven‘s cancer which they try to battle together. Sven, who lives in Berlin, has come to Switzerland to where the sister Lisa lives with her family in order to do that. Sven does better there for a short period of time and strongly believes in his big comeback and hopes to be able to perform as Hamlet on the Schaubühne very soon. But the bone marrow transplant that Sven received from Lisa doesn’t work and so there are only a few options left, and what’s even worse, there’s less and less hope and a will to live.

Admittedly, LITTLE SISTER by Stéphanie Chuat und Véronique Reymon does read like a classic cancer drama at first with little space for an original concept. But the first big advantage of the film is its cast: with Lars Eidinger and Nina Hoss the Swiss directors didn’t just possibly get the two best actors in German theater in front of the camera for the first time, but they managed to construct their story as close to their actors as possible so it directly gets under your skin when the two fight with each other to save each other on screen. Eidinger himself has played Hamlet at the Schaubühne for years and Thomas Ostermeier, who directed the play, also plays himself. But it is ultimately thanks to the impressive intimacy and direct chemisty of Eidinger and Hoss that this concept, this intense, emotional feat of a film actually works in the end.

Pamela Jahn

Translation: Elinor Lewy