So, unlike the rest of the world this week, I went and watched the new Amy Poehler and Tina Fey comedy vehicle Sisters instead of awakening any forces within (not entirely by choice, but let’s not go there).
It’s not uncommon for comedies like this to fall into an easily classifiable category of “I laughed” or “I didn’t laugh”, and many will, but what I noted about this seemingly simple comedy about two adult baby women having this one last big party and reliving their childhood having been told that their childhood home has been sold and will be lost to them forever. It’s very hard for one to let go of one’s childhood. No matter how many years pass or how many “adult” responsibilities we take on (or don’t) there’s always something that we hold dear to our heart that will transport us back to that part of ourselves. It could be seeing Three Amigos on a lazy Sunday night, seeing your highs hool significant other, or just going home for the holidays and being with your parents again.
The film centers its comedy on two simple ideas: watching parents act like children having a crazy out of this world party go way out of proportion; and seeing these two very different sisters, Kate (Fey) and Maura (Poehler) who see and act in the world very differently switch roles for the night, that being having Maura be the irresponsible one and Kate have to watch over everyone as the party goes faster and faster towards its ludicrous end point.
We start out simply watching two adults exist in a world where they obviously are not managing well. Watching on as Maura assumes wrongly that a guy on a corner is homeless and offers her assistance to be shown wrong, and Kate as she is being told how irresponsible she is being by her own teenage daughter who’s gone “on the lamb” from her for the summer and is not telling her where she has gone to. We get this world. So when we later watch as both daughters throw a tantrum that you would only expect to see coming from a 4 year old after learning that this house that they still see a bedrock of their lives will be lost to them forever.
The film builds and builds on this idea where we spend the majority of our time baffled at how crazy it is that these two were “allowed” to be this old and this childish at the same time. However, slowly as the night goes on and we watch as the party goes full steam ahead and every other 40 year old parent of three gets blind drunk, high and just overly into being obsessed with reliving the dumb things they did as children you start to get into it yourself. With choice moments from the likes of Maya Rudolph, Bobby Moynihan, Kate McKinnon and John Cena the film does its work it pushing itself into the category of one of the best comedies of 2015.
