{"id":3927,"date":"2018-09-02T17:30:57","date_gmt":"2018-09-02T17:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commarts.pleather.us\/2018\/09\/02\/the-sisters-brothers-review-joaquin-phoenix-and-john-c-reilly-star-in-the-most-sensitive-western-ever-made-venice\/"},"modified":"2018-09-02T17:30:57","modified_gmt":"2018-09-02T17:30:57","slug":"the-sisters-brothers-review-joaquin-phoenix-and-john-c-reilly-star-in-the-most-sensitive-western-ever-made-venice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/m2\/2018\/09\/02\/the-sisters-brothers-review-joaquin-phoenix-and-john-c-reilly-star-in-the-most-sensitive-western-ever-made-venice\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Sisters Brothers\u2019 Review: Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly Star in the Most Sensitive Western Ever Made \u2014 Venice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Sisters Brothers<\/a>\u201d is a sensitive western about brotherly love that just happens to revolve around stone-cold murderers. It’s a context that requires an original approach to the genre, and that\u2019s exactly what veteran French director Jacques Audiard brings to his first English-language effort. However, in retrospect, Audiard is a natural fit: With movies like \u201cDheepan\u201d and \u201cA Prophet,\u201d Audiard makes rich character studies about people trying to do the right thing in a world stacked against them, and nothing in American mythology provides a better template for exploring that crisis than the Wild West. However, it\u2019s the stirring chemistry between Joaquin Phoenix<\/a> and John C. Reilly<\/a> as committed siblings that transforms these lively, violent circumstances into a sweet and intimate journey designed to catch acolytes of the genre off-guard.<\/p>\n

Based on Patrick Dewitt\u2019s 2011 novel, \u201cThe Sisters Brothers\u201d unfolds against the backdrop of the Gold Rush, though the historical context is secondary to the narrative it sets in motion. In the first frame, titular Sisters brothers Charlie (Phoenix) and Eli (Reilly) emerge from nighttime shadows to massacre an entire house full of targets. Employed by an enigmatic gangster known as The Commodore (Rutger Hauer, in a fleeting but welcome cameo), the brothers careen across the barren landscape juggling various missions to murder men for reasons irrelevant to their plight. It\u2019s a subversive adventure story about the supposed bad guys, a hit-man comedy by way of Peckinpah, and remarkable for the way it makes the familiar backdrop so appealing from the start.<\/p>\n

For the hard-drinking Charlie, this endless killing spree is a justification unto itself; the gentler Eli, however, has started to question the underlying purpose of their missions. Little by little, the focused script (credited to Audiard and Thomas Bidegan) reveals details about this odd pair and the history of their bloody career path; so long as the movie hovers in the center of this dynamic, it remains a fascinating exploration of an unusual family bond.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Sisters Brothers\u201d mines so much substance out its central characters that it falters when it cuts away from them. When the brothers are hired to track down a supposed thief named Hermann Kermit Warm (Riz Ahmed, wearing a classy mustache and an inviting grin), the story shifts to his experiences with Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal), the bounty hunter who nabs Hermann under the auspices of delivering him to the killers. Sporting a peculiar British accent that makes his lopsided \u201cOkja\u201d character look normal, Gyllenhaal stands out as odd variable in this otherwise credible scenario, though his scenes with Hermann develop their own sense of intrigue. It turns out the alleged criminal actually has a water-based formula with the ability to make gold appear in river beds, and its financial prospects appeal to Morris enough that he decides to become his prisoner\u2019s business partner as they plot to foil the Sisters brothers when they arrive.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

But really, this scenario sets in motion more complications for the brothers to escape, as they continue to contend with the broader existential question of what they should do with their time. Enduring harsh conditions on the road between Oregon and California, the Sisters spend much of the movie saving each other from physical harm, whether it\u2019s abrasive spider bites or drunken saloon showdowns, and it\u2019s so endearing to watch them survive each new twist that it renders broader stakes irrelevant. There\u2019s an Altmanesque quality to the way Audiard builds out this world, with the ever-reliable Alexandre Desplat\u2019s jangly score and Benoit Debie\u2019s warm, painterly visuals opening up the brothers\u2019 journeys to the boundless possibilities of the frontier. It almost seems as though they could keep at it forever, but every messy gunfight inches them closer to the possibility that time is running out.<\/p>\n

About those gunfights: While Audiard has never made a proper action movie, many of his credits have a brutal, physical intensity, from the grotesque prison showdowns of \u201cA Prophet\u201d to the street brawls of \u201cRust and Bone\u201d and the Rambo-like militant finale of \u201cDheepan,\u201d from which Audiard drew on \u201cThe Wild Bunch.\u201d To that end, he excels at constructing the most intense sequences of the movie. Filled with jolting sound design and clever misdirection, the shootouts in \u201cThe Sisters Brothers\u201d have a sustained potency and remain unpredictable until the very last moments, much like the brothers themselves.<\/p>\n

Reilly, who also produced the movie, tends to strike a distinctive tone between goofball and gentleman, a balance that makes his character here so likable from the outset. In a standout moment at a brothel, he attempts to engage in the most kindhearted sexual role-playing in film history, and his bedroom antics are so lovable the prostitute (\u201cFargo\u201d Season 1 star Allison Tolman) is led to tears; next door, of course, an inebriated Eli\u2019s wrecking havoc on cue. The sad-funny balance of this sequence epitomizes the movie\u2019s endearing tone.<\/p>\n

Phoenix, buried behind his usual scrappy beard, peers out at every twist with the same wild eyes that have become his trademark. A sort of companion piece to his emo hitman in Lynn Ramsay\u2019s \u201cYou Were Never Really Here\u201d earlier this year, Phoenix plays Eli as the ultimate foil to his brother\u2019s measured world view: Whereas Charlie constantly worries about his behavior, Eli never hesitates to maintain control of a situation \u2014 in a scene that finds the brothers facing down the barrels of a few guns at once, a typically sloshed Eli stares back at their foes and confidently vomits before taking them out.<\/p>\n

While not every turn of events remains so involving, the siblings remain a key selling point, as the title of \u201cThe Sisters Brothers\u201d provides a template for examining one of its core themes: This most masculine of genres often takes masculinity for granted, but \u201cThe Sisters Brothers\u201d doesn\u2019t let its tough guys off the hook. They\u2019re vivid, emotional beings, the products of troubled upbringings who live hand-to-mouth the only way they know how. When they finally come around to confronting a major figure from their past, it arrives as a kind of spiritual awakening, the cinematic equivalent of watching a grown man cry.<\/p>\n

Grade: B+<\/h3>\n

\u201cThe Sisters Brothers\u201d premiered at the 2018 Venice Film Festival. Annapurna Pictures releases it theatrically on September 21.<\/i><\/p>\n

Source: IndieWire film<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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