Sister Cities

Every now and then I see a movie or read a book that touches upon the soul. THIS is just suck a movie.

NO SPOILERS but life can be tragic one moment and hilarious the next.

The ups and downs are what make memories, form bonds and keep us on our toes.

This movie encompassed raw emotion during brutal yet magnificently messy, heartfelt moments. A beautiful story with flawed characters and flawless actresses!

Sadly, it touches on a truth which reminds us it often takes tragedy to bring families together.

The four sister unite during such an event and must learn to see each other in new, adult eyes and come to terms, each is vastly different in where their lives have gone.

Author-Bobbi Romans

The development of the characters in the movie was excellent. The plot moved along briskly, but the ending was not predictable. the movie unfolded piece by piece. Lots of dialogue, none of which was irrelevant and also lots of action, for a chick flick. All of which served the theme, which I will not reveal. But I will say is that this, for me, is what matters the most, and when I call it a Hollywood morality play, I'm talking about Hollywood morality. Sister Cities lays out a developing trend in American moral thinking that I believe is an aspect of the general degeneration of our society, and despite the fact that this movie is well crafted, I give it a 4.

This movie affected me very deeply because I was the primary caretaker for my own mother, who died in 2011 of a form of ALS. The issues involved were very close to the surface for me (still) and I reacted very emotionally to this beautifully crafted story.

Unfortunately the timeline in the movie was grossly inaccurate. It took my mother eight agonizing years to lose the use of her body, bit-by-bit, and by the end she could neither talk nor communicate. She slowly lost the use of her legs about 4 years after her first stumbling signs of trouble, and lost the ability to write about 6 years in. She was bedridden for the last three years of her life, 100% mentally normal but slowly becoming encased in a body that would no longer respond to her.

She refused a feeding tube when swallowing became a problem, and eventually had to die, three weeks later, from slow starvation. It was horrible. She BEGGED (when she still could) to be hastened toward death but by then there was nothing we could do. Washington's "Death With Dignity" law did not apply to her situation.

So while the story here treated similar circumstances with compassion, there was an unrealistic portrayal of the true horrors of ALS.

The story is riveting and the acting flawless. I loved this movie. And I saw a screening on the same weekend as I saw 2 big box-office films. This one way outshone the others in every way. The story was told with flashbacks in a way that revealed more and more of the linear story as the film progressed. The ensemble acting made you feel you were there with these sisters. And the scenes between each sister and mother deepened our understanding of each character. The screenwriter is not only a wonderful scriptwriter, but also a novelist and we get to know these characters in a way that is usually possible only in novels. There is humor, sometimes dark, but always real that comes from the story, never thrown in merely to break the tension.

This my kind of movie with stereo type of characters. Strong women with each having their own problems.