Sister

'Sister' screened at the Traverse City Film Festival this summer. I've only walked out of two films in my life: 'The Passion of the Christ' and this one (Tommy Wiseau's 'The Room' is freakishly riveting by comparison). The topic - our culture's over-reliance on prescription drugs to medicate children - is long overdue for a serious film treatment. However, the script is so heavy handed (and, at times, tone deaf) that the actors have little room to become plausible characters. There's a rather familiar gallery of movie tropes here: the man-child with the stalled acting career and the loitering drinking buddies, the nagging but gorgeous striver-wife (whose prolonged swimming pool exit feels entirely pointless and gratuitous), the sullen teenage sister whose only apparent direction for the first half of the film was to pout and drop profanities (though I sense Grace Kaufman has some serious acting chops that will emerge with a better script). Overall, I'm still a bit baffled that the TCFF screening committee thought this was worthy of the Festival's tenth anniversary.

It is Christmas Eve, 2016 and I had no idea why I recorded this... yet now I understand. I lived in a world of bi-polarity and I needed this film today. The systematic approach to the unraveling of one character poised next to the grounding and evolving of the two leads was illuminating. Reid Scott and Grace Kaufman were incredible together. The evolving of love, trust, and loyalty was compelling. People who have survived families with members who were mentally ill will appreciate the links that were absent in their own lives-the bond of love and the impact it has on emotional development. This movie takes on a very misunderstood issue of mental illness and misuse of psychotropic drugs. Everyone has a unique electrical system. The Psychiatrist espoused an ignorant manifesto, but he too evolved. I loved the movie because the conflict was realistic, approach individualized (never intended to be a panacea) and the characters were viable!

Sister tackled a very sensitive issue (childhood attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), over-medication and misdiagnosis) skillfully and with grace. We saw the film at Waterfront Film Festival in South Haven, MI this past weekend, and sat in on an excellent Q&A with the director afterward.

We were extremely impressed with the actors in this film, and little Grace Kaufman who played Niki was wonderful! It was great to see Barbara Hershey, and she did a stellar job playing a mom with bipolar disorder. Reid Scott was also perfectly cast and was amazing! We loved this well-researched and beautifully done film. Thank you!!

My wife and I were looking for a nice movie online and came across this one, streaming on Amazon Prime. I don't know exactly why but we didn't think it would be as good as it is.

Main story, because the 11 yr old girl suffered a tragedy in her family on Long Island, plus a hospitalized mom, she is unceremoniously dumped on her much older brother in Los Angeles. He is an actor, married, currently looking for work, and totally unprepared for becoming an acting father for a girl he hardly knew. A girl on medications and who had a series of school disciplinary problems.

So with that as the setup the movie explores their relationship and how the big brother has to grow up more than the little sister. A prominent theme is how perhaps too many young boys and girls are medicated too much to help them cope with issues of growing up.

The writing is interesting, with some inventive dialog, and the acting is very authentic. We enjoyed the movie, it is somewhat of a hidden gem.

Having a rating of 6.7/10 and on freevee, I thought I would give it a view.

So, an always in trouble 11 year old girl looses her father in a car accident of which her mother survives. After the funeral the mother has a breakdown and goes into hospital. After a lot of deliberating it is decided that girl will live with her brother whilst the mother recovers.

The brother lives with his beautiful wife where he is trying to make it has an actor, but unfortunately has not seen a job in almost 2 years.

About half way through the film I had lost all interest, the brother character played by Reid Scott i guess was supposed to be funny, yet acted like an ejit. The Serinda Swan character was a no go from the start, far too intelligent for Billy, considering they had been married for what seemed some time, I would have kicked the ejit to touch long ago. Even when Niki quotes that Melissa had nice boobs, Billy responds she had great boobs , they will be back, i am guessing this is humour.

I read all the user reviews after this film because I could not believe this film was rated almost 7, oddly enough no one mentioned that how come Barbara Hershey could pass for an 11 year old's mother.

Poor casting for me, Serinda Swan's character not great for such a great actress.