Perfect Sisters Is a Perfectly Bad Movie
Film: Perfect Sisters (2014). Young Actresses: Abigail Breslin, 15, and Georgie Henley, 16.
Sisters Sandra and Beth are both straight-A high school students with big hopes for their futures, and they're as close as can be. But their alcoholic single mom (Mira Sorvino, Reservation Road) keeps losing her jobs, getting them evicted from apartments, and dating abusive men. “God, I'm so tired of her dragging us down!” Sandra yells at one point. Coincidentally, this clumsy, cliched film seems determined to do the same thing: drag down two bright, talented young ladies. Abigail (Sandra) and Georgie (Beth) might not be as famous as some of their contemporaries, but they are two of the best actresses of their generation, so seeing them onscreen together is quite a treat - and it's the only reason to see this otherwise awful movie.
When Beth is upset over moving again, Sandra tries to put a positive spin on the situation.
The plot is based on an actual murder case. As their situation grows worse (Beth fights off an attempted rape by her mom's boyfriend, a scene that I discussed more in my review for Divergent) and their other relatives let them down (their dad wants nothing to do with them, and their aunt tells them to be more supportive of their mom), the sisters decide to kill their mom. They drown her in the bathtub, making it look like an accident, and initially, the authorities think it is. But being teenagers, they don't have the common sense to not brag about it to their friends at school. This plot could've made for a very compelling movie if it had been well-executed... but it wasn't.
After their mom doesn't pay the rent, the girls discuss their options and how long until they're evicted.
Perfect Sisters has many flaws, but the biggest one is probably that it has no idea what genre it is. The tone of the movie constantly shifts from horror to dark comedy to family drama (remember Saoirse Ronan's The Lovely Bones? it had similar problems, although it was still better than this), and the script is painful throughout, about on the same level as a Lifetime TV movie. Sandra and Beth are even less consistent as characters, moving from moody and sarcastic, to hurting and vulnerable, to happy and grinning - sometimes all in the same scene! One example is immediately after the girls drown their mom. Sandra is the one who actually holds her head underwater, and at first, she's trying not to smile as the police question her. A little while later, she's nervously biting her nails (see the screenshot below). Of course, mood shifts are natural in teenage girls, but these are so frequent and bizarre that it leaves you feeling like you never really know these girls. In one of the few interesting bits of the film, we learn that the sisters created their own secret language when they were young; they still occasionally use it, like when they need to discuss murdering their mom in front of her. We also learn that they were molested by more than one of their mom's ex-boyfriends. It's very jarring how casually this is mentioned, especially considering how giggly and grinning the girls are in early scenes.
Beth, who's just called 9-11, smiles while Sandra, who's just drowned their mom, looks nervous.
It's a real shame to see Abigail and Georgie's talent go to waste here. It's also a credit to them as actresses that despite the poor material and forgettable performances from everyone else - including Zoe Belkin (Carrie) as a fair-weather friend - they still make you sympathize with these girls. At the film's end, Sandra and Beth are found guilty of killing their mother and sentenced to prison... but what devastates them far more is the ruling that they will be imprisoned separately, with “no contact whatsoever” between them. Guards drag them apart kicking and screaming, and the scene is quite effective... but the movie shouldn't have waited until the last scene to be effective.
The final scene: Sandra and Beth listen to the guilty verdict.
Interesting Fact: In the film, Abigail is a year older than Georgie, but in real life, Georgie is a year older.
See Also: Georgie at the premiere; reviews of Abigail's other movies Nim's Island (2008), My Sister's Keeper (2009), and August: Osage County (2013).
Sisters Sandra and Beth are both straight-A high school students with big hopes for their futures, and they're as close as can be. But their alcoholic single mom (Mira Sorvino, Reservation Road) keeps losing her jobs, getting them evicted from apartments, and dating abusive men. “God, I'm so tired of her dragging us down!” Sandra yells at one point. Coincidentally, this clumsy, cliched film seems determined to do the same thing: drag down two bright, talented young ladies. Abigail (Sandra) and Georgie (Beth) might not be as famous as some of their contemporaries, but they are two of the best actresses of their generation, so seeing them onscreen together is quite a treat - and it's the only reason to see this otherwise awful movie.
When Beth is upset over moving again, Sandra tries to put a positive spin on the situation.
The plot is based on an actual murder case. As their situation grows worse (Beth fights off an attempted rape by her mom's boyfriend, a scene that I discussed more in my review for Divergent) and their other relatives let them down (their dad wants nothing to do with them, and their aunt tells them to be more supportive of their mom), the sisters decide to kill their mom. They drown her in the bathtub, making it look like an accident, and initially, the authorities think it is. But being teenagers, they don't have the common sense to not brag about it to their friends at school. This plot could've made for a very compelling movie if it had been well-executed... but it wasn't.
After their mom doesn't pay the rent, the girls discuss their options and how long until they're evicted.
Perfect Sisters has many flaws, but the biggest one is probably that it has no idea what genre it is. The tone of the movie constantly shifts from horror to dark comedy to family drama (remember Saoirse Ronan's The Lovely Bones? it had similar problems, although it was still better than this), and the script is painful throughout, about on the same level as a Lifetime TV movie. Sandra and Beth are even less consistent as characters, moving from moody and sarcastic, to hurting and vulnerable, to happy and grinning - sometimes all in the same scene! One example is immediately after the girls drown their mom. Sandra is the one who actually holds her head underwater, and at first, she's trying not to smile as the police question her. A little while later, she's nervously biting her nails (see the screenshot below). Of course, mood shifts are natural in teenage girls, but these are so frequent and bizarre that it leaves you feeling like you never really know these girls. In one of the few interesting bits of the film, we learn that the sisters created their own secret language when they were young; they still occasionally use it, like when they need to discuss murdering their mom in front of her. We also learn that they were molested by more than one of their mom's ex-boyfriends. It's very jarring how casually this is mentioned, especially considering how giggly and grinning the girls are in early scenes.
Beth, who's just called 9-11, smiles while Sandra, who's just drowned their mom, looks nervous.
It's a real shame to see Abigail and Georgie's talent go to waste here. It's also a credit to them as actresses that despite the poor material and forgettable performances from everyone else - including Zoe Belkin (Carrie) as a fair-weather friend - they still make you sympathize with these girls. At the film's end, Sandra and Beth are found guilty of killing their mother and sentenced to prison... but what devastates them far more is the ruling that they will be imprisoned separately, with “no contact whatsoever” between them. Guards drag them apart kicking and screaming, and the scene is quite effective... but the movie shouldn't have waited until the last scene to be effective.
The final scene: Sandra and Beth listen to the guilty verdict.
Interesting Fact: In the film, Abigail is a year older than Georgie, but in real life, Georgie is a year older.
See Also: Georgie at the premiere; reviews of Abigail's other movies Nim's Island (2008), My Sister's Keeper (2009), and August: Osage County (2013).