THE COLOR WHEEL

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In this new comedy, director Alex Ross Perry gives a harsh, sarcastic twist to the intimate rivalry of siblings. He co-stars as Colin, a diffident aspiring writer whose older sister, J.R., a proud and caustic aspiring actress, has dropped out of college after ending a relationship with “one of the top broadcast-journalism professors in the entire state.” She recruits Colin to join her on a road trip to her ex’s house to get her belongings. The siblings’ antic humiliations begin at a Christian-themed motel, where they must pretend to be a married couple, and continue through a series of chance encounters, including one with their former high-school friends. Along the way, they pummel each other verbally with their constant squabbling and dredge up several decades of pent-up grudges.
Perry directs these uproarious rapid-fire flareups with exquisite comic timing and incisive comic framing (the black-and-white cinematography is by Sean Price Williams); he and Altman go at each other with claws bared, revealing the terrifying vulnerability of a pair of wounded souls who know each other’s wounds all too well. (Richard Brody)