The Sisters has an interesting scenario and will keep you guessing. Although it's good entertainment for a slow night, it's slightly over "dialoged" where you loose the rhythm, it has a tendency to feel like a play more than a movie, and the editing could be easily improved, especially for the cut scenes. The character of the "beautiful" sister can easily get on somebody's nerve, but it is well played as all the sister the sisters are, and even the brother to some extent. The other characters are much weaker.Not bad, worth being seen if you feel like seeing a family going through theatrical drama.

An outstanding film from Arthur Allan Seidelman, based upon a play by Richard Alfieri (Puerto Vallarta Squeeze).Maria Bello just dripped sensuality in every word and movement throughout, except when she was spitting venom like "This party isn't for you anyway. It's for our little unborn nephew... God save him from your genes." Or, "Harry... Harry, if you want to withhold approval, intimidate and give rewards or punishments... buy a dog." She was the child of incest by her father and that rape caused her immense pain that permeated every relationship. It is a fact of life, and I have never seen it more brilliantly displayed. Alfieri captured the lifelong torture in his word, and Bello displayed it with emotion that made this film.That is not to say that Bello was it entirely. Eric McCormack ("Will and Grace") had a pain of his own and he was absolutely dripping with venom in his snide remarks and eventual explosion of the bottles up anger. A man afraid to revel his feeling for fear of rejection, he got to the point where he could no longer contain.Elizabeth Banks was the perfect "white trash" that felt out of place in this family - and she was, marrying the out of place brother Alessandro Nivola. Mary Stuart Masterson was also extremely good as the sister who could not reveal her pains either due to her position at the school. Rip Torn added perspective as the professor who read headlines out loud.Great performances from all and a film worth your time.

When the former assistant to a deceased eminent academic comes to pay his respects to the great man's family, the visit stirs old, half hidden conflicts and triggers an avalanche of emotions in this overheated, theatrical drawing room drama based on Anton Chekhov's play, "The Three Sisters." (Richard Alfieri wrote the screenplay, which he adapted from his own updating of Chekhov's play.) Maria Bello, Mary Stuart Masterson and Erika Christensen play, respectively, Marcia, Olga and Irene, the three Prior daughters.Ms. Bello holds center stage most of the time, hurling one angry speech after another at just about anyone in shouting distance (though they're all in one room). She is angry primarily because her father systematically abused her sexually as a child, second because Harry Glass (Steven Culp), the psychologist she married, has not been able to heal her deeply wounded personality, and, finally and most recently, because Vincent Antonelli (Tony Goldwyn), the visitor, a man she become instantly infatuated with, turns down her overtures and leaves.Baby sister Irene turns her hostility inward, and galvanizes everyone's attention by taking a large drug overdose. Andrew Prior (Alessandro Nivola), their brother, is angry too, but in sneakier fashion. He's mad because his sisters bully him and dislike his fiancée/bride Nancy (Elizabath Banks), who's also a nasty sort, someone deserving of the sisters' contempt. Then there's the incendiary social science professor, Gary Sokol (Eric McCormack), whose explosive behavior never ceases. Sokol's mad because Irene prefers another suitor, Sokol's erstwhile buddy, philosophy professor David Turzin (Chris O'Donnell), who doesn't seem to be mad at anyone. Olga, a bleak, unfulfilled Lesbian, at least keeps her unhappiness contained. She is the most dignified member of the family.Somehow the veteran actor Rip Torn got himself inserted into this literal madhouse as old Professor Chebrin. And while Mr. Torn has been memorably hostile in some of his films (he's played gangsters, tough soldiers, tougher cops, Richard Nixon and even Judas Iscariot among 165 roles spanning a 50 year career), he's quite the good humored, sanguine fellow here, almost alone as a source of equanimity in these proceedings.The screenplay is freighted with long, formalized verbal oratorios: these people don't talk like people talk. Such verbiage works on stage but is nearly always poison on the screen. The director, Mr. Seidelman, has made nearly 70 films, but almost all for television. This may explain the overacted, soap operatic tone of this movie. You've got to shout it out to be heard above the din of family life on the boob-tube. But the clamor of this film is ratcheted up way too much for pleasurable viewing on the big screen. (The IMDb says this film is 113 minutes long, so somewhere along the line 28 minutes got cut to create the version I viewed. Probably a good thing.) My Grade: 5/10 C

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!