Sisters
In the vein of Bridesmaids and Trainwreck, this is another gross-out farce in which the fairer sex takes centre stage.
Sister tat: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler
Produced by its stars Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and scripted by the Saturday Night Live alumnus Paula Pell, it reminds us that women are just as crass, scatological and revolting as some men can be. There was another movie called Sisters, released back in 1973, but that was a horror film directed by Brian De Palma. This is a horror film directed by Jason Moore.
The premise is how two disparate siblings decide to hold a party in their childhood home before their parents sell it. It’s their parents’ nest egg and you know what is going to happen – particularly if you’re familiar with Risky Business and can imagine National Lampoon’s Animal House bolted on for good measure. It’s not funny.
Paula Pell sprinkles in a few good lines but the predictability, musical cues, stereotypes and over-acting imagines up the sort of bender that annihilates reputations, good will, logic, credibility and any semblance of wit. Vomiting, drunkenness, dick jokes and wholesale destruction are the order of the day. To make it all worse, there’s a liberal dose of sentimentality that sticks in the craw, as does the homophobia and xenophobia. But every movie has a silver lining and here it’s the presence of Greta Lee, who is very funny as Hae Won, a beautiful Korean manicurist. With a completely straight face she repeatedly insists that Amy Poehler’s Maura pronounces her name correctly. And then, at the end, they marry her off to the film’s token obnoxious fat guy. Now that really is offensive.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, John Leguizamo, Ike Barinholtz, John Cena, James Brolin, Dianne Wiest, Madison Davenport, Bobby Moynihan, Greta Lee, Rachel Dratch, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Chris Parnell.
Dir Jason Moore, Pro Tina Fey and Jay Roach, Ex Pro Amy Poehler, Screenplay Paula Pell, Ph Barry Peterson, Pro Des Richard Hoover, Ed Lee Haxall, Music Christophe Beck, Costumes Susan Lyall.
Little Stranger-Universal Pictures.
117 mins. USA. 2015. Rel: 12 December 2015. Cert. 15.
