Sisters isn't a classic comedy by any means, but it does have its charms. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler share a real comic chemistry. Having been friends for so long in real life, they share a sisterly relationship that shows on the screen, despite looking nothing like each other. The jokes start pretty weak, but their sheer relentlessness and their mounting frequency as the film progresses, eventually wears you down and wins you over.
Fey and Poehler play the sisters of the title. In a reversal of their usual comic personas, it's Poehler who plays the uptight sister, Maura, while Fey is Kate, the wild one. Kate is a single mother, hairdresser who's been fired from her latest job. Maura is a divorced doctor and do-gooder. The two of them reunite at their childhood home when they learn that their parents are selling it. They decided to throw one last party there and invite all their old friends from high school to give Maura the night she never had as a teenager, including, hopefully, having sex with a neighbor guy on her childhood bed, which Kate describes as a rite of passage.
The script is by longtime Saturday Night Live writer Paula Pell, but some of the humor feels like it was improvised. There is more than a whiff of sketch comedy about the jokes and the characters. It feels like a protracted sketch about a group of middle-aged people at a high school party. However, as the party progresses and the night wears on, the action and the jokes become more frenetic, fueled by drugs and alcohol. The cumulative effect of the mediocre jokes increases their humor.
It's the game cast that really helps sell the jokes. Along with Fey and Poehler, there are several other current and past SNL members. Maya Rudolph plays Kate's old high school nemesis while Bobby Moynihan plays an unfunny friend who tries way too hard. His humor is helped when he accidentally ingests some drugs. Rachel Dratch has a small part as a depressed partygoer. James Brolin and Dianne Wiest play Kate and Maura's long suffering parents. And John Cena physically looms over the party as the resident drug dealer.
The attempts to give the film heart are mixed. The relationship between the sisters is great and Maura's attempts to seduce the neighbor is nice, but the relationship between Kate and her daughter never really works and the deaf Korean, single mother, manicurist whose daughters are still in Korea, is far too much for this movie to handle. Part of the problem with Kate's storyline is that no matter how hard Fey tries, she never quite pulls off the wild child. It's hard to picture her actually doing something legitimately self-destructive.
Released in the same weekend as Star Wars The Force Awakens, this movie might get overlooked at the box office, but for fans of Fey and Poehler it's worth a watch, even if you do wait until it's released for home viewing.
