You will watch few performances this year as sleeveless as Jessica Biel’s in The Better Sister. Biel’s character, the allegedly ultra-competent magazine editor Chloe Taylor, spends half the episode swanning around in a heather gray tank top, presenting a physique and a silhouette that look like the work less of a trainer and more of an impressive visual effects workshop. The effect portrays her as both tightly muscled and tightly wound, a woman who ensures her body, face, and hair look spectacular so no one will look too closely.
And you don’t have to take my word for it, either. Over and over in this episode, characters comment on Chloe’s appearance, in ways that can be deemed either effusive or offensive depending on how you feel about the contemporary beauty standards and/or the patriarchy. Her sister Nicky admiringly plays with Chloe’s ultra-neat bob, purring about having wanted to get her hands on that hair since she arrived in New York. Her increasingly estranged mentor/advisor/financial backer Catherine insists on a face-saving memorial get-together for her murdered husband Adam — if only, she says, to make sure Chloe eats. When Chloe envisions a conversation with Adam, he tells her “You look thin,” sounding concerned — until they both grin at how much she always loved it when he’d tell her this.
I think I speak on behalf of everyone with eating-disorder experience when I say, Yeesh! But also, yeah, that tracks: Chloe absolutely would interpret that as a compliment, even if in public she’d likely mouth all the right bromides about body acceptance. It’s very easy to talk about that kind of thing when your body looks like Chloe’s — and the show’s final scene, in which she strips out of her dress for the wake and stands around in black underwear and high heels for a while, makes sure we get an eyeful.
I reviewed the fourth episode of The Better Sister for Decider.
Tags: the better sister, TV, TV reviews