Perfect Sisters

Sandra Anderson (Abigail Breslin) has her older sister Beth (Georgie Henley) as her best friend. Their alcoholic partying mother Linda (Mira Sorvino) moves the family once again into another lower class neighborhood. Linda loses her job and can't keep her sobriety. Her mother's boyfriend is abusive. Nobody is willing or able to help. So the sisters and their friends plan to kill the mother for the insurance money. It's loosely based on a true story in Toronto.

It's an amateurish attempt from producer turn director Stanley M. Brooks. The girls are reasonable but it doesn't rise any higher than a TV melodrama. The story gets a little bit interesting as the kids plan the murder. The dialog is pretty bland bordering on awkward with some weak narration from Breslin at the start. Another problem is the lack of interesting style from the movie. Obviously they're using Breslin's star power to sell this but she can't save this project.

The Canadian version of 'Heavenly Creatures'. The director admits he inspired by the Peter Jackson's movie. But you must know that this film was also based on the real sisters who were fed up with their irresponsible and alcoholic mother and her abusive boyfriend. So they plot to set free themselves from the messed up life as they think they deserve better.

It was supposed to be a television movie, but later it saw a limited theatrical release and a mixed response from all quarters. I liked the film, for its strong content, but the weakness lies in the first half. The beginning was a very poor quality of presentation, the next half was the reason I favoured it where it erupts while the narration nearing the conclusion.

Since no one knows the details about the real sisters, the characters were altered in the movie as the cast desired to attack few things to complete it. Both, Abigail Breslin and Georgie Henley were not bad, but it's hard to believe these child actors are all grown up. In a few years, they will be in the lead! Anyway, this film is worth a watch, especially true stories like this fascinates me. We could learn about our world and its society, what other people went through in their lives and the reason behind those stuffs.

7/10

I was looking for some gripping, even chilling story about dysfunctional teenagers. Like what we saw in "Thirteen", which was a great movie, but now with a - true - crime story. Nah.

The director has been a producer for over 30 years and got some famous people to act in it. The actresses (the three of them) are really good. However, the direction takes a completely wrong turn, trying to make it a "dark teen fantasy-comedy-thriller-drama" salad. For instance, you start to wonder how two young girl plan the murders and... you have four teenagers enacting fantasies about murder. That's so not the thing this film should portray.

All the intentions to connect with teenagers were completely flawed. Bad soundtrack, TERRIBLE montage effects, ludicrous mixture of genres, awful cinematography work. It's like parents using slang. All the attempts to highlight the medium -- divided screen, special lights, accelerated camera -- are pathetic and would not even work in an MTV show in 1997. It's not a film for teenagers -- and if it was supposed to be, it didn't work either.

There are scenes that people's faces are covered by SOMEONE'S HEAD -- and not intentionally! Unbelievable. If you are a director making a debut, be humble and let a competent cinematographer AND editor do their jobs. How beautiful this film would

On the top of that, a voice-over starts giving ANOTHER angle on the film -- those films about bitchy teenagers obsessed with fame, kind of like To Die For from Gus Van Sant -- only to forget about it minutes later and never coming back to that.

Anyways. I was interested in the story, and through all the amateur work I could grasp something from it. The two girls are great actresses, and Mira Sorvino portrays precisely the thin line between a likable weak person and a wreck that screws up their children.

Somewhere I heard this: some people don't have to work their way into the center of the stage. They can pull strings and buy themselves into it. Question is: are they ready for it?

This is based on a true story and on real life people. That might raise some red flags with some. But if you don't mind that, there is quite the drama unfolding. Not easy to watch at all, but really good performances. Also not really characters in this one that you should be able to identify with much (at least not if you are stable generally speaking).

Having said, there are some horrific things happening (if you've read what it's about you already know what I'm hinting at, if not I won't tell/spoil) ... so not for the faint hearted or easily offended. But life can be hard and we are not all the same. While I would not condone many of the things happening, the structure of the movie makes it easy to understand how everything build up ...

Inspired by a real case. it is the basic support for a film who has potential to be interesting but remains expression of good intentions. because Mena Suvari is reduced in the cage of cliches. because the universe of teenagers is just a sketch. because it could be a real good drama but the director has not the courage to explore in deep sense the Andersen sisters drama. something missing. this is the word after its end.