I had a bad feeling about The Other Sister from the first line of the synopsis: "Juliette Lewis plays a mildly retarded woman who..." Whoa! Stop right there! There are two concepts I object to in that sentence. Also two concepts with an irresistible potential for sheer suckiness. (Let me make something clear up front: I don't laugh at retarded people. I laugh at affectatious, non-retarded actors who play retarded people. Also I laugh at Janeane Garofalo's routine about the kind of people "who wish that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan could play a couple in EVERY movie... and not just a couple, but a FUNCTIONALLY RETARDED COUPLE.")
Directed by Garry Marshall, whose middle name, I think, is "Cloying," this movie is sadly not nearly bad enough, nor is it any good. Someone called it Terms of Endearment meets Rain Man, which is a pretty good description (and which should tell you better than I can if you'd like this movie or not). Juliette Lewis is, yes, a slightly retarded young woman, though the only signs of her mental "exceptionalness" are that she can't really enunciate "r" or "l" sounds, she looks surprised a lot, and she kind of flails her arms when she walks. Otherwise, she's really got her shit together a lot more than some people I know -- despite her parents' concerns, she's intent on getting an education and moving into her own apartment. Hell, for a year and a half I dated a guy who didn't even have those ambitions, and he tested normal. Take away the "differently abled" angle, and it's just another story about a grown child trying to break away from overprotective parents.
Diane Keaton, who I usually like, gives a strident, one-note performance as the smothering, tightly wound mom. Tom Skerritt, as the father, looks vaguely confused all the time, as though he's not really sure where he is but he's going to make the best of it. And the less said about Giovanni Ribisi, the also mildly retarded guy Lewis falls for, the better. The movie's actually very patronizing about them, like, "Aw, look, retarded people in love! Aren't they cute!"
Anyway, that's about all I can say about the movie because I walked out a little more than an hour into it -- I just couldn't stomach all the cutesy set pieces, the condescending attitude, and most of all, Lewis and Ribisi's awful, loud, monotone speech. I will say that the film included two of the unintentionally funniest lines I've heard this year: 1) Lewis' sister, when teased about her career choice, retorts defensively, "I'm not teaching second grade because I LIKE children, but I think they're our future." 2) At her school, Lewis bends to pet a police dog; the officer chides her, "He's not for petting; he's for drug-sniffing."
Back to homepage
Reviews A to F
Reviews G to L
Reviews M to R
Reviews S to Z
Search