The Sisters Brothers (2018)
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The Sisters Brothers Movie Review
The Sisters Brothers is a 2018 western film directed by Jacques Audiard and starring Joaquin Phoenix, John C. Reilly, Riz Ahmed and Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s a pretty good flick.
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“You punched me, Charlie“
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I never found this story particularly sophisticated nor thematically rich, but it’s still so engaging and well crafted that I ended up really liking it. I liked the adventure/quest aspect to it, but above all else the strong character dynamics and a good sense of fun. The movie is very fun and also amusing at times with quite solid, surprisingly present and effective humor. But in its dramatic elements and some great touches and details it worked splendidly.
So the characters and their actors obviously make this movie and are the best reason to see it undoubtedly. Eli is such a gentle giant and a very different than your usual western character. He’s easily the most likable person here. Charlie is more typical as this drunk, reckless fool, but the two are so different, yet still caring for each other that they ultimately worked splendidly as a brotherly duo.
Warm and Morris have a solid dynamic and are good characters, but suffer in comparison to the above two. But I still liked Riz Ahmed and Jake Gyllenhaal’s performances quite a bit here. But Joaquin Phoenix and especially John C. Reilly steal the show as both are excellent here and they play off each other so well. Acting wise and character wise, this movie is borderline great.
But in terms of the plot, The Sisters Brothers could have been a bit better and more sophisticated. The dialogue is strong and the emotional investment is definitely there, but the movie was disconnected at times and its two subplots do not bleed particularly well into each other. Also, as much as I loved the ending and Eli’s love sequence and all those sweet, touching scenes, they weren’t all that important to the actual story when you think about it.
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The cinematography is strong and the direction is solid, but the editing and pacing could have been better as sometimes the movie isn’t all that well organized. However, it is very entertaining and charming even throughout and that is rare for the western genre so I in the end found this flick to be very successful in what is was trying to do and be.
The Sisters Brothers needed a better structure and better pacing, but it still provides a fun, engaging storyline populated with very well developed, interesting or likable characters with the actors playing them all giving very strong performances. As a whole, the movie is flawed, but individually it’s great in many touching or funny or intriguing sequences.
