If
you sue your parents in court, you will be vilified in the press, but if you
drown your mother in a bathtub, movies and TV shows just might invite sympathy
on your behalf. That certainly seems to be the case with a new film inspired by
the murder of Linda Andersen. To be fair, she comes across as a really, really bad
mom, so viewers will not be too terribly disappointed when she expires before
the third act of Stanley M. Brooks’ Perfect
Sisters (trailer
here), which
opens tomorrow in New York.
Sandra
and Beth Andersen try to look out for their little half-brother as best they
can, because their shared mother is a train wreck. She is an unemployable binge
drinker with a nasty habit of getting involved with abusive men. The family
typically spends a month or two in each new apartment, because that is how long
it takes to order an eviction. The only exceptions are when Andersen latches
onto a sketchy sugar daddy. She finds a real beaut when she takes up with a
lawyer named Bowman.
Frankly,
it hardly fazes the sisters anymore when he starts abusing their mother.
Likewise, Beth the goth thinks she can handle it when he starts pressuring her
for sex. However, when he starts hitting their brother, they reach their
breaking point. Oddly though, it is their mother that they decide to kill, only
partly because they are the beneficiaries on her life insurance policy. To plan
the murder, they enlist the help of Beth’s boyfriend and Sandra’s social rival.
They also solicit advice from the school via online chatrooms. Everyone is duly
impressed when they follow through, but the stress does not wear well on
Sandra.
Yes,
crowd-sourcing your murder plans is just a fundamentally bad idea. In general,
killing a parent is low percentage play. The Andersen sisters probably should
have taken a more responsible course of action, like running away with the circus.
Still, co-leads Abigail Breslin (from Ender’s
Game) and Narnia’s Georgie Henley
are fearlessly intense as the so-called “Bathtub Girls.” Indeed, it is truly
quite compelling to watch Breslin’s Sandra Andersen become more and more like
her problematic mother.
Frankly,
Perfect Sisters kind of works when it
strives for high tragedy, but it is rather flat as a true crime thriller.
Unfortunately, it is far from a smooth ride. Brooks’ herky-jerky transitions and
the sisters’ awkward flights of fantasy do not serve the narrative flow or
instill a consistency of tone.
