Sisters (2015) Review!!!

Synopsis – Two sisters decide to throw one last house party before their parents sell their family home.

My Take – Despite being a fan of the Tina Fey & Amy Poehler pairing, it took me a while to get myself to watch this movie, and of course the bad reviews on the internet never help. Nevertheless, I got myself into watching the UNRATED version, which I must say for people who love old school cheap stakes comedy (I know I do), it is a good watch! This is a comedy in the modern manner: raunchy and filled with foul language. I never realised how much I missed this kind of films. Usually with these type of comedies the best moments are on the trailers but this is definitely an exception because you just can’t stop laughing, yeah sure there are some clichés but only the good ones, and honestly common with these two together this can’t go wrong! I was also afraid that was one of those comedies like stupid funny that ends up being more stupid than funny like most of the latest comedies are but luckily not this one. The film manages to pull of a R rated house party, which I agree has been done to the death, but rarely right. In order to get a house party right, instead of forcing the idea of destruction to be funny, the hilarious out of control decisions taken by the guest should be the focus. And here we have to excellent comic actress who are known to elevate the cheapest and shallowest formula (their feature film “Baby Mama,” most “Saturday Night Live” skits, and even this film, to some degree) and make it feel lively and fresh simply by way of their aura and talent. This is a film which innocuously compliments a girls’ night out, and will even impress most male audiences, if they can look past their subscription to the idea that women can’t be as funny as men. The story follows two middle aged divorced sisters Maura (Amy Poehler) and Kate (Tina Fey).

Maura is maintaining an uptight life of responsibility, which allows her parents, Bucky (James Brolin) and Deana (Dianne Wiest), to share the uncomfortable news that they’re selling her childhood home. While Kate is an unemployed hotheaded single mother who doesn’t take the word of the sale very well. Forced to clean out their rooms before inspection by the potential buyers, the sisters decide to throw one last party, inviting all their high school pals, while trying to exclude judgmental high school rival Brinda (Maya Rudolph). Working with booze, lesbian DJs, and free rein of the house, the celebratory pair pushes the initially sedate gathering into craziness while also dealing with personal issues, including Kate’s habitual irresponsibility and Maura’s interest in friendly neighbour James (Ike Barinholtz). Chaos eventually erupts when the festivities begin, but the film is best when focused intensely on Maura and Kate’s interplay, watching them deal with the reality of aging by clinging to childhood distractions as they revisit their adolescence. Their shared bedroom is a wellspring of nostalgia, and director Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect) soaks up the strange atmosphere, highlighting play time between the sisters as they monkey around with toys and trinkets and revisit disparate sexual development misadventures through shared diary passages, identifying when their personalities diverged. It’s terrifically funny stuff simply because it completely belongs to Fey and Poehler, who are a mighty team with sharp timing and a willingness to goof around when the moment requires a little comedic messiness. The plot eventually gets in the way, but when the film merely asks the stars to play, the humor is irresistible. Without a doubt the film is an hard R-rated affair that’s filled with drug-induced debauchery, foul language, and a degree of gross-out humor, trying its best to live up to the promise of its premise as Maura and Kate experience the best night of their lives. Mercifully, writer Paula Pell isn’t persistently aggressive, opening the film with necessary introductions that capture sibling personalities, finding Maura maintaining household order with her beloved dog, still unsteady from a divorce that disrupted her future plans. Kate is doing odd beautician jobs at home after being recently fired, with daughter Haley (Madison Davenport) giving up on her mother, taking off to a secret life. The need to reconnect with youth is handled nicely by Pell, who gets the sisters where they emotionally need to be in a hurry, maintaining a steady rhythm of motivations and silliness as Maura and Kate return to Orlando, Florida, ready to raise hell. Even though the film seems like a sketch idea more then a movie idea, it surprisingly works well. A lot of that has to do with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as our leads.

Not only do they really seem like siblings, but they take every chance they can with their characters, taking shots at each other and the people around them. It always seems like that whenever these two team up, they know how to make the most irritating situations funny. The party itself is also fun to watch. Rather then simply starting off with loud music and dancing, everybody’s more sad and quiet, clearly beaten from the pressures of real life. Once the drugs are brought by a funny John Cena cameo, walls are destroyed and fights are started by old enemies. The problem is that the partying goes on at least fifteen minutes too long. The film does wrap up, but the ending takes up so much time, that you’d think they’d cut some of the hard partying in order make room for the more personal stuff. As I mentioned before, the comedy here is no holds barred, irreverent, and unapologetic, how Tina Fey behaves will shock audiences mainly because we’re so used to seeing her play 30 ROCK‘s Liz Lemmon all those years, someone who’s trying to hold it together for the rest of her team, but here, Tina lets it loose and runs wild, it’s the side of Tina‘s that I don’t mind watching again and again, sexy and brash. Amy Poehler and Tina Fey are like two sides of the same coin, you’ve seen them work together all those years, either on SNL or hosting awards, so it was just a matter of time for them to finally give us a movie about them playing sisters, it’s meant to be. Everything they had done previously have led them to this one defining moment. Other secondary performances from the likes of Rudolph, Ike Barinholtz playing James, Maura’s love interest, and John Leguizamo as the neighbourhood sleaze work because they are understated roles played by actors with the gift of comedic timing. John Cena‘s, playing a muscular drug-dealer that basically stands and broods until approached is hilarious. His presence, and his role here, are delight to watch. Maya Rudolph gets a couple of good scenes. Agreed, the premise is a little weak and the characters’ motives are tenuous, but there’s a certain ’80s nostalgia that’s underlying the whole deal. Not a whole lot happens, but it never loses momentum while keeping your attention throughout. It’s the pairing of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler that’s immensely appealing about this raunchy comedy. There doesn’t even really need to be a movie to support the co-stars, as the very idea of shenanigans hosted by two of the top comedians working today is enough to satisfy. On the whole, ‘Sisters’ is a slice of old school comedy which is hilarious, heartfelt, and downright dysfunctional. Don’t take it seriously, open your mind and go along for the ride, you’re bound to experience more than a few laughs and even more so if you’re a fan of gutter humour.