Dearest Sister 2016

Nok is a naive village girl who travels to Vientiane to look after her cousin Ana, a woman who has grown wealthy through an arranged marriage to a foreigner and is suddenly struck down by a mysterious illness. The illness brings not only blurred vision but also the uncanny ability to see the recently dead, a twist that sets the whole story in motion.

Jakob arrives with a request: Nok should come because [Ana] is plagued by visions that pull her into a hidden, danger-filled world. In the moments when Ana recites numbers she cannot remember, Nok discovers a way to turn those numbers into lottery picks. The first win brings a new phone into Nok’s grasp and a shared glimmer of possibility between the two women. When another vision follows a stroke suffered by the mother of a supermarket vendor, Nok wins again, only to have the winnings stolen by Ana’s own servants who threaten to expose Nok’s supposed theft to Ana. This marks the start of a fragile, complicated bond between the two women, as Ana begins treating Nok more like a sister than a dependent, buying her clothes and confiding in her in ways Nok had not anticipated.

Tragedy deepens when Ana foresees her mother’s death and collapses, chanting numbers. A call to her mother reveals nothing amiss, yet the mother dies hours later in a hit-and-run accident. Ana’s father quickly suspects the numbers are tied to the lottery, but Nok, driven by a mix of fear and desire, withholds the correct information and pockets the winnings for herself. The rift between Nok and Ana widens as Nok admits she spent the money, and the realization that the numbers were indeed valid drives a wedge between them.

Seeking help to “correct” Ana’s vision, Ana travels to Thailand for an operation. While the two are away, the household descends into chaos: the servants throw a drunken revelry that wrecks the house. When Ana and Jakob return, they fire the servants, and Jakob returns to his failing business, leaving Ana in Nok’s care. Yet Nok refuses to tend to Ana, even starving her and rearranging the furniture so she cannot move. In a turn of desperation, Ana steals Nok’s cellphone and locks her in the washroom, calling Jakob for help while Nok, listening from the bathroom, has a vision in which Jakob seems to appear and then vanish, triggering another recitation of numbers that Nok overhears.

Jakob arrives to rescue Ana but is beaten by loyalist servants who have returned to loot what remains. They lock Ana and a dying Jakob in the washroom with Nok, forcing the three into a tense standstill. As the hours pass, Nok vents about how Ana supposedly treated her, while Ana maintains she was always kind. With the bandages finally removed, Ana’s final vision damns them both to a fatal fate. Nok seizes a knife, questions what Ana is looking at, and Ana, lifting a blade in return, answers in a single, haunting word:

Nothing.