Siblings review: Compelling portrayal of the ceaseless work of caregivers

In the event of an illness, our focus is always on the patient. But what about the caregivers, the family members who work tirelessly, day in and day out, to take care of the sick person? The short film Siblings puts the focus on the toll that caregiving exacts on two sisters as their lives are subsumed by the task of looking after their comatose father. 

Nidhi (Shivani Tanksale) and Diya (Sheetal Menon) are forced to take on the role of parents as they struggle to take care of their grandmother and their father. With the cost of health care and mounting bills, the sisters try to keep their heads above water while desperately trying to hold on to a semblance of a normal life. However, despite all their efforts, they only seem to be running faster and faster to stay in the same place.

Nidhi is the primary breadwinner. Overworked and overwhelmed, her romantic relationship is falling apart because of her commitment to her family. Exasperated with her situation, she lashes out at her sister, who she feels can do much more.

Diya, on the other hand, is the more hands-on caregiver to the father, struggling to keep her job and also trying to find a suitable man who won’t bolt at the mere thought of the responsibilities she has. Through Diya, we are also taken into the common exploitative work culture of start-ups that rely on cheap or free labour. With no income coming in for her work, she becomes an easy target for her sister to pick on.

Although the sisters share a beautiful bond, it starts to come apart due to the sheer burden of caring for a comatose parent. All the while, the aged grandmother is witness to their quarrels, as resigned to the fate of the girls as them. The steady hum of the ventilator keeping their father alive is a reminder of their unrelenting work where only a few precious moments offer a much-needed breath of fresh air, like the cutting of a birthday cake or the eating of an ice candy in peace, before their lives are overwhelmed again.

Written and directed by Sheetal Menon, the film allows silences and spaces to speak for themselves. Nuanced performances by Tanksale and Menon capture the range of emotions that the women feel, from anger and frustration to helplessness and sheer exhaustion, faced with a mountain of work and hoping for a release. They also capture the ups and downs in a sibling relationship as they argue, fight and take out their pent-up anger on each other, but they are also together when it matters the most. 

At one point, at the end of her rope, Nidhi says, “I wish Dad would just go”, voicing that which is perhaps often felt but never said. Siblings addresses the fact that while death offers release, it’s the in-between phase that exacts the heavier toll.