From Omeleto.

Two siblings move home.

BUT HERE WE ARE is used with permission from Julia Johns. Learn more at https://juliajohns.com.

Nate and Lucy are siblings in their late thirties, but they’re not close, due to the ups and downs of life and their past conflicts. But when Lucy arrives back at the family home due to financial troubles, she is put in close quarters with Nate, who has landed back home after being served divorce papers.

Both can’t avoid one another with distance or different lives anymore and at first, the dynamic is strained between them. But being at home also forces them to get their conflict out in the open, as they discover their common ground again.

Directed and written by Julia Johns, who also plays the co-lead role of Lucy, this short family dramedy is a thorny, amiably loose portrait of siblings renegotiating their relationship as adults. Nate and Lucy had a strained relationship growing up, and as grown-ups, they’re not close. But now they’re both struggling with the travails of adulthood and may finally have some common ground to meet upon.

Shot with warmth and simplicity, the storytelling plays its fissures with both sincerity and a light touch; there’s something fundamentally decent about Nate and Lucy. Their disagreements with one another aren’t necessarily over major irreconcilable issues, but rather a sense that they were never quite in the same place when they were younger and perhaps felt judged or inadequate vis-a-vis the other. Landing back at home as adults, however, both are in retreat as aspects of their lives fall apart.

Now, they’re finally in the same place, emotionally and psychologically. Humbled and disabused of their egos, perhaps, they can finally meet one another where they’re at. Actors Julia Johns and Jason Burke convey the sometimes bruising familiarity that siblings can have, with hints of their younger selves poking through their dialogue. But they also carry the weight of life choices gone sideways and the doubts and anxieties that arise. And with some openness and willingness to be vulnerable, they also discover they’re poised to be one another’s best ally through these tough times.

Empathetic, enjoyable and warmhearted, BUT HERE WE ARE reminds us of something we tend to forget: our siblings are often the people who travel the longest with us in life, and our relationships with them tend to have the widest variance of texture, whether they’re contentious, close or somewhere in the middle. Our brothers and sisters are with us from our earliest childhood memories to the twilight of our elder years, but we rarely look at these relationships with the same investment or intensity as we do with romantic or parental ones, for instance. Yet as Nate and Lucy learn, there’s potential for it to be one of the most rewarding ones we can have, if we’re willing to look at them with fresh eyes, an open mind and a good sense of humor.