Sisters remake DVD Review
Sisters remake DVD Review
A distant relative to the Brian De Palma original
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The tale of these two Sisters isn't an easy story to tell — there's love, obsession, anomaly, and lots of histrionics. In less-than-deft hands, such an account can come off unintentionally funny. There are, in fact, a few chuckles of wonderment in director Brian De Palma's original work of horror… but they're uneasy laughs, not outright ones.
The director of the ambitious remake, Douglas Buck, took perhaps a safer route than he should have with some of the subject matter, but the movie is so beautifully shot and so well-acted ala 70s giallo and with one foot in De Palma territory and one in Cronenberg's, (most) all is forgiven.
Keeping to the spirit of its source, the story follows one of the previously conjoined twins, Angelique (Lou Doillon), as she struggles under the thumb of her controlling psychiatrist, Dr. Philip Lacan (Stephen Rea). Her plight gives an all-new meaning to the term "separation anxiety". Things change when a handsome new doctor shows up the sanitarium — Dr. Dylan Wallace (Dallas Roberts) takes a liking to Angelique and wants to help her. Also wanting to help, but liked by no one, is the tenacious investigate journalist, Grace Collier (Chloë Sevigny), who's trying to get at some hidden secrets within the walls of the hospital and on the tip of Lacan's scalpel.
Most of the action and suspense takes place in and around Dominique's apartment and, right across the way, Lacan's private office. Sevigny is very good as the reporter, even as the script forces her character to do some rather dumb things (a stumbling block in the De Palma movie too, but that version was so stylized it was easier to be glamoured by the goings-on and not notice right away). Rea and Doillon are serviceable as sinister shrink and fucked-up femme fetale, but the real standout of the entire cast is Roberts (who first came to my notice in 2007 as the uncle in Joshua). He plays the besotted dupe with intelligence, grace and genuine likability.
When it comes to the genre and scary elements, there aren't a lot — it's not that kind of movie, however there is a brutal murder and its aftermath (when the police show up, this is when Sevigny's character loses several IQ points, bringing an otherwise excellent thriller down a notch or two). There's some light treading into freaky-town with allusions to deformities and flesh-raving, but ultimately Sisters is mostly about people in bad situations, how they react, and what horrors they choose to ignore.
The cinematography, locations, sets, music, costuming and general ambiance is lovely; Sisters looks much better than its modestly-budgeted roots would suggest.
I liked Sisters a lot better than most of its reviewers, but I would have liked it a lot more if the tone had been more distinct — in my opinion, audiences weren't sure if the story should be enjoyable, or not. I think the filmmakers should have either gone way over the top, or been even more retrained than they already were (I'd have preferred the former, but I do love some crazy gialli!). Still, I liked it well enough to add to my library and I do recommend it.
The DVD has some rather extensive, and interesting, extras. I especially enjoyed the behind the scenes footage and on-set interviews. I learned a lot about how not only the first version was made, but how this remake actually has better reason to exist than most.
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson