Sibling relationship sabotage a hot topic

By Sarah Sluis

In Hollywood, like attracts like. That sense of dj vu that occurs when a project is announced isn't eerie, but a welcome sign of familiarity that allows you to compare the film with its predecessors. So it's no wonder that certain plot elements seem to cluster together. Take the recent announcement that Andy Fickman will helm You Again. Described as a "female-driven comedy," the movie is about a woman whose brother gets engaged to her high school nemesis, the "mean girl." She sets out to sabotage the engagement and prove to her brother that he's about to marry someone evil.

Compare this project to another sibling relationship interception in the works, Ride Along. It's a starring vehicle for Ice Cube more than anything else, in which he'll play a rogue cop upset with his sister's fianc: a white, uptight psychiatrist. He brings him along on one of his patrols, hoping to intimidate him out of marrying the sister.

While both of these projects use different genre starting points to tell their story (the high school angst film versus the buddy cop film), I find it remarkable that two tales of siblings interfering with their brother or sister's engagements would appear in one week. Add one more, and it'll be a trend. What's more, there's no real precedent for this kind of film. Most of the movies involving relationship sabotage usually have a best friend involved, someone who's angling for a romance--think My Best Friend's Wedding. Replacing the best friend with a sibling is far more Freudian, but also family-oriented during a time when people are in a protective, save-for-the-winter mode. The only example I can find, from summary alone, is last year's Margot at the Wedding, in which Nicole Kidman tries to sabotage her sister's relationship to Jack Black. Could this be the under-the-radar film that set off the rise of the sibling relationship sabotage film?