"The Unspeakable Act" (2013)

The titular act of The Unspeakable Act actually gets spoken about quite a lot throughout the film so lets take a similar tact: it's incest. But the film is never being judgmental of the deeply personal, co-dependent relationship of the sister and brother Jackie and Matthew Kimball (Tallie Medel and Sky Hirschkron) of the film. Their family has come to accept the strange, slightly questionable bond that exists, and similarly the film accepts it as a matter of fact. In stead, the film chooses to delve into Jackie's perspective to try and understand her feelings. In time, we come to accept it as matter of factually as the film wants us to. Jackie and Matthews relationships stems from social awkwardness and complicated family history, slowly doled out over the course of the film. Though they never consummated the relationship, Matthew, probably correctly, believes that if he doesn't form relationships beyond Jackie he, as well as his sister, will be stunted and nonfunctional later in life. Thus he gets a girlfriend, which causes Jackie to explore why she's so drawn to her brother. We come to like Jackie in time; she has a weird, wryly funny, singular personality and a outspoken and unique point of view -- suggestive of a writer in the making. She's perceptive on many things -- just on one thing she can't quite fully speak of.

Grade: ★★★