Sisters (1972)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Instant Favorite.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Abrasive feminist reporter Grace Collier (well played to the annoying hilt by Jennifer Salt) witness a murder committed by model Danielle (a bravura performance by Margot Kidder) through her apartment window. When the police don't believe her, Collier hires low-rent private detective Joseph Larch (the always excellent Charles Durning) to get to the bottom of things. From its clever opening that puts an ingenious spin on the whole concept of voyeurism to the boldly ambiguous "it's not quite over" ending that refuses to tie everything up all nice and neat in a bow, director/co-writer Brian De Palma has a grand time slyly subverting basic thriller conventions while still delivering the requisite exciting set pieces: The brutal murder of decent guy Phillip Woode (a likeable portrayal by Lisle Wilson) is downright painful to watch while a ripsnorting cinematic black and white flashback sequence proves to be both surreal and nightmarish in equal measure. William Finley contributes a splendidly creepy turn as sinister psychiatrist Dr. Emil Breton. Dolph Sweet also does well as gruff and skeptical detective Kelly. Gregory Sandor's polished cinematography makes expert use of split screen and boasts a few sinuous tracking shots. Bernard Herrmann's shivery and spirited score hits the stirring spot. Essential viewing for De Palma fans.

A young French-Canadian model and would-be actress Danielle Breton (Kidder) in New York City, meets cute with a black advertising salesman Philip Woode (Wilson), in a proto-reality show "Peeping Tom", which conspicuously heralds director Brian De Palma's intrigue of voyeurism in this lurid genre piece: the urge of killing from a Siamese twin under severe psychological pressure and personality disorder, who has been recently successfully severed from her sister.Yes, Danielle has a twin sister Dominique, De Palma and co-writer Louisa Rose's script doesn't shy away from steadily implicating that Dominique is the insidious killer who lurks behind the camera, initiates conversations with the personable Danielle, and mercilessly assaults any man who gets intimate with her lovable sister, an emblem of the evil side of the conjoined anomaly, meantime, a bespectacled, bulged-eyed, gangling Emil Breton (Finley), Danielle's ex-husband, looks equally suspicious and sinister with his hidden agenda.Philip is the jinxed victim who thinks he is getting lucky, but fails to notice that he overstays his welcome due to his own goodwill, how ironic is that? Before succumbing to death, however clumsily, at least he manages to catch the attraction of Grace Collier (Salt), the journalist living in the building across Danielle's apartment, immediately she alerts the police force, but as outlined by the split screen dynamically chronicling the paralleled actions, contrasting the crime scene where Danielle and Emil hastily conceal the dead body (thanks for ruining couch bed for me Mr. De Palma) and clean up the blood, with the detectives dilly-dally their action (racism and sexism are heedfully hinted here) to check Danielle's apartment against Grace's mounting keenness and impatience. What De Palma devises is a stylish and effective cinematic machination, but he also wears his heart on his sleeve, which inconveniently renders the not-so-convoluted story an unwelcome feeling of arbitrariness.Grace, hogs the limelight thereafter, vigilantly plays detective, digs into the backstories of Danielle and hopes for an exposé, thanks to the assistance of a private eye Joseph Larch (Durning), who will later undertake a tailing mission to a bizarre and goofy cul-de-sac (and literally, the ending of the film). Grace is characterised as an uncouth, career-pursuing knucklehead, we understand that she is a woman of principle, works hard to break the glass ceiling, but her undisguised single- mindedness and wanting for etiquette turn herself into an irritant, consequently pare down viewers' investment into her dangerous pursuit, which ends up in a mental hospital, where Emil finally gives his tell-all recount and discloses the darkest secret of Danielle, while Grace's own sanity will be forever compromised by Emil's hypnotic brainwash. Undeniably, this part is the meat of the story, it is presented from a peculiar angle of an eyeball, with a surreal veneer onto the sensational tale-of-misery by its grotesque tableaux vivants and freaky colour scheme, yet, for my money, Bernard Herrmann's intrusive score is a shade shrill and nerve-racking.Margot Kidder deserves some kudos for her dualistic impersonation and nails a not-so-irritating French accent, to corroborate her undervalued versatility. It would also turn out to be a wonderful idea for Jennifer Salt to give up acting and become a successful TV producer and writer instead. On the first impression, SISTERS is a testimony of De Palma's forte: injecting a dash of gore into a deeply unsettling psycho-drama, but that doesn't make him an essential master, because a certain requirement of gravitas and punctiliousness is something uniformly absent from most of his works I have watched.

The movie begins simple. If there is no Criterion mark on DVD, one may think that its a horror flick and it is actually a horror flick got prestigious somehow except for the fact that the plays are surprisingly good. Specially Margot Kidder delivers an outstanding performance as a French Disturbed woman. The African American guy looks like a potato but that's how most guys act when a stranger woman surprisingly asks them out. I would say it was an awesome performance in potatoness! The plot is simple and easy to follow. ***Now I warn you, this is going to be a real spoiler***. The woman who murdered the black guy was in the bed while it is clearly shown that Danielle was unconscious in bathroom although we never discover the nature of those very important pills nor we never find out why she needed more when she just took 2 pills 5 minutes before. Anyways, what I'm saying is, despite the outcome of the movie that Danielle and her sister are essentially the same person, Danielle can not be the woman in bed murdering the guy. I don't want to say the plot had problem but it was rather a defect in one scene. I think based on the outcome of the movie, Plama should have re written the scene. Another problem was the faith of the couch. It ended up next to a railroad in Canada while the private detective was watching it from the top of a telephone or power pole. There is a corpse in that couch for God's sake, it should grossly stink. Not only there is no foul smell (I say it based on the arrangement of the scene) but we do not know what took the private detective to get close and inspect/report the couch. The ending was unclear in murky way otherwise it was a descent entertaining movie, not something extraordinary and certainly does not belong to the Criterion line of movies. 5/10

The Staten Island apartment of lovely model Danielle (Margot Kidder) becomes the scene of a grisly murder that is witnessed by her neighbor, Grace (Jennifer Salt), a reporter. But the police do not believe her story, so it is up to Grace to solve the murder mystery on her own.Largely influenced by the films of Alfred Hitchcock, and composed by Hitchcock's composer Bernard Herrmann, this film has a good degree of Hitch's "Rear Window" with just a dash of giallo mixed in.De Palma trademarks show up -- plenty of split screen, and a plot revolving around voyeurism. And the stars are De Palma's college friends. I think Margot Kidder's big break came through this film (she did a few things before, but nothing that jumps out at me).