| There
are certain rules in Hollywood involving
the portrayal of romantic relationships
on the big screen. Certain combinations
of leads naturally go together –
handsome men and beautiful women being
the predominant pairing. Lately, a trend
has emerged involving cute young adult
males and lovable teenage females
(usually with shows on Fox or the WB)
and, once in a while, moviegoers are
treated to the unlikely affairs of
rickety old men and chicks half their
age. Stars are always fit, have great
teeth, skin and hair, and are usually
white. Films that stray
from these templates of success are
generally resounding box office failures.
Why? Because people won’t line up
for Number 18 with Hunan Foot, the
touching story of a Chinese guy with a
really large head who falls in love with
a 70-year-old lady leper. They will also
reject Mommy, I’m Taller Than
Daddy, starring a middle-aged single
mom with a huge raised birthmark on her
face and her lucky find – a midget
with one eyebrow and a cowlick.
Howard
Stern has made a career out of shining a
spotlight on those aforementioned
oddities. Until now, if you wanted to
hear a drunk dwarf, paranoid stutterers
or alien lesbians, Howard was the only
place to go. Hollywood could only ignore
his phenomenal ratings for so long.
So,
along comes The Other Sister, a
film that bills itself as "a
romantic comedy for the emotionally
challenged." Translation – a
love story about two retards. They meet.
They fall in love. They have a fight.
They get back together. They get married.
And they drive off with their car
dragging a "Just Lobotomized!"
sign. Okay, I made that last part up, but
it would have been more original than
anything in Sister’s tiresome
script.
The
film opens with Carla (Juliette Lewis, Natural
Born Killers) having just graduated
from Roselake, a school for
mentally-challenged children. Carla flies
home to San Francisco, where her father
(Tom Skerritt) and overbearing mother
(Diane Keaton) seem intent on keeping her
at home under a watchful eye. They live
in a giant house with a live-in maid and
a gate, so one has to wonder why they
didn’t just lock her in the attic.
Like the Kennedys.
But
Carla has other plans. She wants to
enroll in a public vocational school. Her
parents say no but eventually give in.
She wants her own apartment. Her parents
say no but eventually give in. She wants
a boyfriend. Her parents say no
but…hey! Are you tired of reading
this yet? Try sitting through 130 minutes
of it.
Lewis
is remarkably unremarkable as Carla. But,
then again, Carla isn’t too far off
of the roles that she usually plays. Her
love interest Daniel (Giovanni Ribisi, Saving
Private Ryan) is much better, but
also not much different from his
recurring role of Phoebe’s brother
on Friends. Actually, the only
difference is fake teeth. Keaton’s
mother is purposefully and pleasantly
annoying while Skerritt is just plan
scary sans facial hair.
Sister
was written and directed by Garry
Marshall, who hit the big time with
‘70s television shows like Mork
and Mindy and Laverne &
Shirley. His resume as of late boasts
the blockbusters Dear God and Exit
to Eden. This is the first script he
has written since 1984’s The
Flamingo Kid, proving that writing
must not be like riding a bike. But, hey
– if you watch with your eyes
closed, it sounds just like Howard.
2:10 –  for
adult situations and mild language
|
