Sisters

Brian De Palma’s first foray into Hitchcockian territory, Sisters follows intrepid reporter Grace Collier (Jennifer Salt) as she witness what appears to be a brutal murder in an apartment across the way – with the movie, for the most part, detailing Grace’s ongoing efforts at convincing the police that said murder actually transpired. There’s little doubt that Sisters marks a substantial improvement over De Palma’s nigh unwatchable prior endeavors, as the movie, despite its faults, at least tells a coherent story and boasts a handful of genuinely engrossing sequences. It is, in terms of the latter, fairly obvious that Sisters benefits substantially from De Palma’s sporadically stylish direction, with the best and most obvious example of this a fairly electrifying murder interlude that transpires mostly in split screen. The movie nevertheless remains unable to wholeheartedly capture the viewer’s interest and enthusiasm, as De Palma, working from a script cowritten with Louisa Rose, has infused the narrative with a palpably erratic feel that grows more and more problematic as time progresses – with, especially, Sisters‘ final half hour suffering from a few missteps (eg a long, fairly tedious black-and-white sequence) that wreak havoc on its tenuous momentum. Whatever its faults may be, however, Sisters remains both a serious cut above everything that preceded it and also a solid step in the right direction for a fledgling filmmaker.

** out of ****