My Sister’s Sister‘s Rosemary DeWitt stars as Abby, a massage therapist who develops and aversion to human contact. What follows is ninety minutes of depressed and repressed people slowly failing to talk about what’s bothering them. It’s well acted – presumably when the performances are uniformly restrained this has been imposed – and isn’t offensive in its quality, it’s just that I don’t really know why Shelton wanted to tell this story. Brief moments of strange surfaces and their feel are reminiscent of Upstream Colour, but while that capitivated through weirdness and being obtusely eliptical, this doesn’t do much for the senses or grey matter. There are no astonishing visuals, unless you’re a dermatologist who thinks knee skin could do with more close-ups in film, and one suspects that there’s nothing worth cogitating over here, even if the film gripped you enough to care. Character-wise, no-one really leaps out either. Some people are upset because their lives are staid, or because they have had a sudden problem thrust upon them. They get more upset (albeit very quietly), then do something sociable, then they feel better. That’s the narrative, really. It’s hard to see what vital urge gripped anyone to communicate the contents of this movie, but I suppose you can’t spell mumblecore without ‘um’. This isn’t intended as a criticism of the acting, but the slight story, characters and dialogue are not exactly memorable, and the lack of incidental music and occasional languishing shot of not very much happening doesn’t help. While Shelton’s previous works have been partly improvised, here the framework feels underdeveloped. The dialogue and performances do feel semi-improvised, aiming for naturalistic but being so low-key as to feel strange. People hesitate a lot. Don’t expect pace or sparks. Even the angry people seem oddly muted, and everyone talks in this same withdrawn way, which doesn’t help when there’s little else to grip onto. Kudos to the boom operator anyway. Maybe if you’ve got a baby sleeping in the next room and want to watch something without it waking them it might well be ideal, or if you feel very tired but have an overwhelming need to watch something. Otherwise this is a disappointing and strangely lifeless affair considering the talents and ideas involved. Touchy Feely is released on 16 May 2014. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.