SISTER CITIES
US, 2016, 86 minutes, Colour.
Jacki Weaver, Jess Weixler, Stana Katic, Troian Belisario, Michelle Trachtenberg, Tom Everett Scott, Amy Smart, Kathy Baker, Alfred Molina.
Directed by Sean Hanish.
Sister Cities premiered on the Lifetime channel, a channel that appeals to the widest audience, often the daytime audience.
This is a drama about mother and daughters. The mother is played by Jacki Weaver in our old age, Amy Smart when younger. She is a dancer who has travelled the world, lived an exciting life, has had four daughters from four different fathers and named them after the cities they were born in.
There has been some alienation of the daughters from their mother. One, an author of a single bestseller, as returned home to care for their mother in her old age. The other sisters gather, one from the legal profession, aiming to be a judge, another who tries to be perfect but is in the throes of a divorce, and the youngest daughter.
Coming home offers the opportunity for getting to know each other better. However, it also raises the tensions between the sisters. There are many flashbacks to their mother when younger.
Eventually, the secret is revealed, the mother terminally ill, and assisted suicide. The local police chief, Tom Everett Scott, begins to investigate. Also present is Alfred Molina, father of one of the daughters and the best friend of the mother. The film raises the different perspectives on assisted suicide, personal compassion versus the law – and the devices that the daughters use to conceal what has happened.
A drama, based on a play, which is geared to women’s issues especially, exploration of female characters.
- The title? The four sisters? Their names, names of American cities?
- A drama about assisted suicide? Portrait of the mother, her life, illness, decision? Her reliance on her daughter, Austin? Audience sympathies?
- The action taking place on the property, in the house? The bathroom? The downstairs rooms? The confined action but the focus on the family? The musical score?
- The portrait of Mary Baxter? Young, her husband and his absence, the daughters, her relationships, leaving Carolina to look after the of the children? Older, her illness, confiding in Austin? The pathos of the final bath and conversations with Austin? The range of flashbacks, Mary as young, careless? Mary older, kinder, confiding in Austin? In the flashbacks to her writing the notes to each of her daughters?
- Austin, her career as a novelist, reputation, her new manuscript and the publicist not liking it? Her relationship with the fan? Going to live with her mother, her mother confiding in her, the plan for Austin to phone her sisters? Their arrival? Her mother killing herself, the discovery in the bath? Not so long dead?
- The portrait of the other sisters? Carolina, the oldest, responsibilities in the past, plans to be a judge, her reaction to the others, severe, her drinking? Chief Brady and memories of the past, sternness with him? Her issues of the suicide, ethical, legal? Austin administering the drug, her collapse, revival? More sympathy? Baltimore, freer in her attitudes, discovering the book about suicide? Her moods? Dallas, prim and proper, cleanliness and order? Her divorce? Wanting to call the doctor with Carolina’s collapse? Having to ward off Brady and the doctor?
- Brady, the past, the interviews with the sisters, the inconsistency of their stories? The doctor, the photographs, the verdict of suicide? His discovering the letters?
- The sisters reading their letters, their mother’s love for them despite the past? The finale with the four sisters together – the future?
