SPIT IT OUT | Omeleto

A father takes a DNA test. Lyle and Susan have gathered their entire family together at their beautiful home. The family is close and affectionate, and Lyle is excited and enthused to unveil the results of his DNA ancestry test with his children and their partners. He also wants them to take the tests. But when Lyle's test yields unexpected results, the family is shaken to their core, forced to confront buried resentments and doubts in themselves that ripple into one another. Directed and written by sibling co-directing duo Ray Sisters, this compelling short drama takes a contemporary situation and finds universal resonance in its exploration of family togetherness and discord. At-home DNA tests and databases tell their users where their ancestors have originated from and can reveal a web of relatives throughout the world, and have made headlines for the sometimes unexpected results they yield. This narrative takes this modern development and uses it to explore how family secrets, doubts and resentments can lurk for years, only to unexpectedly come roaring into the open, bringing shock, emotional devastation and upheaval in their wake. The film has a warmly prosperous and even cozy visual appeal, with an earthy color palette and softly gleaming light streaming through the windows of a lovely family home. On the surface, Lyle and Susan's family -- now growing into the next generation with a grandchild on the way and another spouse-to-be ready to enter the fold -- is an almost ideal, loving American family. Lyle has been excited to delve into the family's origins with his enthusiasm for at-home DNA tests, creating a gathering around the reveal of his results. But the information revealed shocks him, Susan, and his children, particularly his daughter Natalie, played by actor Kate Sumpter, who is just about to have a baby. Both son and daughter have painful but different reactions to the news, and much of the keenly observant narrative show these separate reverberations, as well as Lyle's own damage control. As Lyle, Oscar-nominated actor Eric Roberts is excellent as a loving, seemingly solid patriarch whose imperfections and indiscretions are unmasked in a particularly vulnerable and public way. His defensiveness is peeled back, revealing layers of inadequacy and shame. It particularly reveals cracks in the stability of his marriage to Susan, played by actor Anya Longwell with confusion, hurt and steely anger. The emotional anarchy that results from the DNA test affects not just the couple but their children, provoking not only arguments but also reflection, as each member contemplates what it means for them. Beautifully made, emotionally intimate and absorbing, SPIT IT OUT excels in its portrayal of how enmeshed and interlocking families are, and how actions and their consequences make themselves felt to all branches of a family tree, despite the most strenuous efforts to limit the knowledge or effect. Lyle's family is forced into difficult conversations and contemplation, and each member must confront both how they are shaped by the family they belong to, as well as how they are different. And for the next generation especially, they must stake their own claim on how they will move forward, building on and against the legacy of previous generations. SPIT IT OUT. Courtesy of Ray Sisters at https://raysisters.com.