Ehirerapp Waste of time

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

jtolleson If I wanted to just watch a bunch of generally unpleasant people fight with each other, I'd watch "Divorce Court." Although I suppose this movie is designed to show emotional complexity with its quibbling protagonists, it just doesn't work for me. None of these gals is particularly likable, so it is hard to care about them or the "family" they form.Against this fairly negative backdrop, we have a plot where none of the real underlying problems, conflicts, or broken relationships is fixed. No one seems to gain insight over the course of the movie, no one seems to heal. A real disappointment.

troggenbuck The cast seemed promising, as did the weak reference to Chekhov, but wow is this movie bad. The writing is shamefully bad, swinging like a pendulum from bathos to banal pop psychology. It's clear that the actors gave up. Nobody's any good in it. My wife and I watched for ~ten minutes, stared at each other in amazement, and then somehow managed to endure the rest—we've given up on far better movies—out of some macabre fascination. What kept us watching was probably the question: How does somebody make a movie this bad with so many creditable actors? Apparently I'm supposed to write at least ten lines, but that seems a shame for such an awful movie. I can say, though, that my strongest impression about the movie is that both the writer and director seem to have never experienced an honest emotion in their lives to have collaborated to create something like this.

bradsbarnes THE SISTERS is an honest attempt at American tragedy. We are living in the American century (expiration date: 2045 a.d.). Tragedy is historically the result of Fate, deprivation or ethnic conflict. Since America is poly-theistic, wealthy and multi-cultural, it is difficult to craft an authentically American tragic narrative. Americans have too many choices to be reasonably cornered-into making a tragic decision. American movies have historically been optimistic, that's why our entertainment has been so successfully exported around the world. We delivered Art Deco opulence with "Fred and Ginger" during the depths of the Great Depression, THE SOUND OF MUSIC during the escalation of the Vietnam War, and JAWS during the Watergate detoxification. America is not a tragedy-ridden culture, so we must stage our tragedies on an intimate scale, keep it close to home, so to speak. THE SISTERS wisely keeps the tragedy close to the chest. Child incest. Adolescent sexual abuse co-dependency. Marital emotional battering. Adultery. Homosexuality. Addiction to crystal methampetimine. And a jagged little green pill called "jealousy". Every American can relate to jealousy: that is our cultural Achille's Heel, after all. By layering one Hot Button topic over another, THE SISTERS leaves many promising topics unresolved, and perhaps fails to resolve any single topic satisfactorily. But compared to films such as ONE THOUSAND ACRES or THE UPSIDE OF ANGER, THE SISTERS covers its' territory with greater assurance and less contrivance. That is largely due to the lead performance by the always-impressive Maria Bello. Bello's movie career is one of depicting small hurts that can spiral into tragedy. Bello doesn't roll with the punches that life throws, but no one takes a punch better than Maria. Bello is the actress that Courtney Love aspired to be back in the 1990's; raw, whip-smart and reckless; and a performer who always gives 110%. Bello's eyes are not blue, her posture isn't perfect, and she doesn't have an Australian accent. But Bello knows how to walk in high heels, has more than held her own against no less than Mel Gibson (PAYBACK), and registers every emotional slight with the facility of a Juliette Binoche. Bello made a romantic leading man out of William H. Macy (THE COOLER) and convincingly kicked Viggo Mortensen to the curb (A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE). Bello takes potentially-thankless roles (the proprietor of COYOTE UGLY, for example) and slowly squeezes each moment into a diamond. In THE SISTERS, Bello plays a survivor of child abuse in an empty marriage who puts everyone she loves through hell by her relentless airing of familial dirty laundry. As Glenn Close might say, Bello will not be ignored! But unlike the proficient but somewhat empty tirades of Elizabeth Taylor in WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, Bello uses her voice like a concert pianist: she is never just reciting the lines or playing to the back wall of the theater. Bello modulates her performance so that we can forgive the bombast and embrace the small truths which she utters. While playing a character who always has a frog ready to leap out of her throat, Bello never loses sight of the humanity behind the histrionics. It is one hell of a turn! By contrast, no one is better at phoning it in than Rip Torn, who; although he has the best lines in the movie; is also the least fully-drawn character. Tony Goldwyn is artificially parachuted-in to this family's seventh circle of hell, but he manages to acquit himself admirably. Eric McCormick starts in a dark place on the balcony and marinates there for the full stretch: we never really find out what's eating Eric. Is Erika Cristensen (TRAFFIC, anyone?) to be cast as an upper-class Meth addict for the rest of her career? Cristensen's recovery is remarkably painless, especially when compared to, say, Jamie Foxx's in RAY. Mary Stuart Masterson, like her fellow Brat Pack alumni Mare Winningham, brings effortless professionalism to roles that contain only hints of a person with an inner life. She is once again not allowed an emotional breakthrough in her buttoned-up Academic character. By setting the story in academia, a certain stuffiness threatens to muck-up the narrative but, again, Bello keeps it raw from tip to tail. In higher education, objectivity is in short supply and access to the inner circle is highly restricted. Just like family, if you think about it. Such isolation allows otherwise avoidable indiscretions to become violations of murderous magnitude. THE SISTERS recognizes that if you never let the cat out of the bag, when you least expect it, that cat will hand you your hat. As a warning against letting a little all-American jealousy get the better of you, THE SISTERS delivers the goods!

ctfilmreview After seeing "The Family Stone" on a recent airline flight I though I had seen the worst film ever made (after "Waterworld" of course). I unfortunately just sat through "The Sisters" as a part of the Key Cinema program.This film can best be described as a high quality audio-video recording of a mediocre play employing small screen actors. I imagine that the play might be considered "good". As a movie, it's just awful. The dialogue between the actors actually becomes annoying. I love plays. I love good theater actors. But I want to see them "in" the theater, not when I go to a movie!!As for the actors.... Let's see - Eric McCormack as a brooding professor who only speaks in sarcastic remarks - what a stretch! I kept waiting for Grace to show up. Rip Torn? Chris O'Donnell? Mary Stuart Masterson?? WOW - what a powerful big screen cast - NOT!! I'm sure that there is a demographic that will enjoy this movie on Lifetime or Oxygen. However, I'm not so sure after my wife overheard comments in the ladies room from several "mature" women who also thought the movie was "dreadful"!!I imagine Anton Chekhov is turning over in his grave about now.........