THE OTHER SISTER
A movie review by Joe Barlow
(c) Copyright 1999
STARRING: Juliette Lewis, Diane Keaton, Tom Skerritt,
Giovanni Ribisi, Poppy Montgomery,
Sarah Paulson, Hector Elizondo
DIRECTOR: Garry Marshall
WRITERS: Alexandra Rose and Blair Richwood
RATED: PG-13
RELEASED: 1999
RATING: * 1/2 (out of a possible ****)
There is a scene early in "The Other Sister" which demonstrates the kind of film it could have been. Carla Tate (Juliette Lewis), a slightly retarted young woman in her late teens, has just come home from an institution. Sitting at the dinner table with her family for the first time in a decade, Carla proudly eats her meal with a fork, something she was unable to do the last time they saw her. No one at the table notices, or offers any sort of positive reinforcement. Undeterred, Carla continues to eat her food, though her eyes register a subtle look of hurt and disappointment.
It's a thoughtful scene, indicative of a movie that plans to take an honest, unabashed look at the world of the mentally handicapped and the challenges and triumphs contained therein. Unfortunately, it's the only such moment in the film. "The Other Sister" rapidly plummets to the level of crowd-pleasing formula, cheerfully abandoning the opportunity to say anything worthwhile. Worse, director Garry Marshall and his screenwriters seem to be laughing at the concept of retardation, and encouraging, no, *begging*, the audience to do the same.
Carla has a difficult time adjusting to home life, thanks to her mother, Elizabeth (Diane Keaton), a stuffy, overbearing woman who seems determined to shape her daughter into something she has no interest in being. Although her father Bradley (Tom Skerrit) is loving and supportive, Carla's mother seems determined to prevent her from doing anything that might indicate normality, such as going to college or moving out on her own. Eventually, however, our heroine meets Daniel McMann (Giovanni Ribisi), a retarded student at a nearby technical school. His sense of adventure and independence impress Carla; soon the pair are romantically linked, allowing the film to set up scene after scene of standard romantic fare.
There is barely a moment in "The Other Sister" that deviates from convention or shows any independent thought whatsoever. Some examples: we have a "falling in love" montage. We have the required "couple has a big fight and split up, only to get back together again" scene. We have an overbearing parent, which is standard issue for any film that centers around a teenager. And when Carla's mother angrily announces that she doesn't want Carla to have anything to do with Daniel, I was able to predict the moment of reconciliation within three seconds of when it actually appeared on the screen.
An adherence to cliche is to be expected in films of this nature, though, and it's not why I disliked the movie. I was offended and annoyed by the fact that "The Other Sister" exists in a perpetual state of contradiction with itself. Carla understandably gets furious any time she thinks people are laughing at her; indeed, one such scene which occurs near the story's climax is heart-wrenching. But despite this, the film continuiously gives Carla and Daniel ridiculous dialogue that's clearly intended to be funny:
CARLA: I wonder who thought up sex in
the first place.
DANIEL: I think it was Madonna.
Why does Marshall want us to laugh at the ignorance of the same people the film is supposedly championing? Why does the movie abandon the more thoughtful issues it raises without so much as a backwards glance (such as the scene in which a young Carla pushes a little boy down the steps and severely injures him, and another in which Daniel is being evicted by his father for flunking out of school)? Why can't it devote more thought to a subplot involving Carla's gay sister Heather (Sarah Paulson)? As it stands, the Heather character seems to included for no other reason than lesbianism is "in" at the moment.
The acting is acceptable, although neither Lewis or Ribisi are completely convincing in these challenging roles. Again, I blame the script more than the actors: their lines make them come off not as mentally retarded, but as stand-up comedians with funny voices, rather like Adam Sandler in "The Waterboy."
From beginning to end, I despised "The Other Sister," a movie which tells us not to laugh at the disadvantaged... then conveys them as loveable goofballs continuously spouting sitcom-tinged dialogue. It tries to convince us that the mentally handicapped are valiant people, struggling in the face of adversity and deserving our respect (a sentiment I agree with), then makes them appear so "cutesy" that one is reminded of trained animals performing tricks at the circus. This is a film that didn't need to be made, and doesn't need to be seen.
E-Mail: jbarlow@earthling.net Joe Barlow on Film: http://www.ipass.net/~jbarlow/film.htm
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