Perfect Sisters (2014)

Tired of their mother's alcoholism and a string of her abusive boyfriends, two sisters plot to kill her.

Director:

Stanley M. Brooks (as Stan Brooks)

Writers:

Fab Filippo (screenplay) (as Fabrizio Filippo), Bob Mitchell (book)

Stars:

Abigail Breslin, Georgie Henley, Mira Sorvino

2 wins.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Abigail Breslin	...	Sandra Anderson
Georgie Henley	...	Beth Anderson
Mira Sorvino	...	Linda / Perfect Mom
James Russo	...	Steve Bowman
Rusty Schwimmer	...	Aunt Martha
Zoë Belkin	...	Ashley
Jeffrey Ballard	...	Justin (as Jeff C. Ballard)
Jonathan Malen	...	David
Stephan James	...	Donny
Zak Santiago	...	Detective Santiago Gates
Caleb Pederson	...	Bobby
Braden Pederson	...	Bobby
Sarah Constible	...	Female Police Officer
Edward Sutton	...	Prosecutor (as Ed Sutton)
Robert Huculak	...	Lawyer

Storyline

On January 18, 2003, police, alerted by a frantic 911 call from a distraught pair of teenage girls, arrived at the girls Toronto area town house to find their mother dead. It appeared the 44-year-old alcoholic, having slipped into a booze-and-pill stupor, drowned in her own bathwater. The death was ruled accidental by the authorities. In the months that followed, however, police were alerted to rumours and reports that the teenagers had been gossiping to friends about the accident. Police began piecing together rumours that suggested the teens might have had a hand in their mother's death. In fact, rather than an accident, the story that emerged portrayed the two teens as cold-blooded, premeditated killers.

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Plot Keywords:

teenager | 

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Taglines:

Being a teenager can be murder.

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

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Did You Know?

Trivia

Jeffrey Ballard lost a lot of weight for the role of Justin. The idea was to show that Justin was neglected by his parents, that he's always out with his friends drinking or smoking, that he's not eating healthy. Ballard even stopped sleeping just so that he could get into Justin mindset and being disoriented.

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Goofs

While they are playing poker in the apartment, the amount of drink in Ashley's cup changes from shot to shot.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Beth Anderson: Ever since I can remember, it was always my sister and me against the big bad world.

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Connections

References Heathers (1989)

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Soundtracks

Cruel
Written by St. Vincent (as Annie Clark)
Performed by St. Vincent
Courtesy of 4AD
By arrangement with Beggars Group Media Limited

User Reviews

Good acting, good story, amateurish direction & cinematography

I was looking for some gripping, even chilling story about dysfunctional teenagers. Like what we saw in "Thirteen", which was a great movie, but now with a - true - crime story. Nah.

The director has been a producer for over 30 years and got some famous people to act in it. The actresses (the three of them) are really good. However, the direction takes a completely wrong turn, trying to make it a "dark teen fantasy-comedy-thriller-drama" salad. For instance, you start to wonder how two young girl plan the murders and... you have four teenagers enacting fantasies about murder. That's so not the thing this film should portray.

All the intentions to connect with teenagers were completely flawed. Bad soundtrack, TERRIBLE montage effects, ludicrous mixture of genres, awful cinematography work. It's like parents using slang. All the attempts to highlight the medium -- divided screen, special lights, accelerated camera -- are pathetic and would not even work in an MTV show in 1997. It's not a film for teenagers -- and if it was supposed to be, it didn't work either.

There are scenes that people's faces are covered by SOMEONE'S HEAD -- and not intentionally! Unbelievable. If you are a director making a debut, be humble and let a competent cinematographer AND editor do their jobs. How beautiful this film would

On the top of that, a voice-over starts giving ANOTHER angle on the film -- those films about bitchy teenagers obsessed with fame, kind of like To Die For from Gus Van Sant -- only to forget about it minutes later and never coming back to that.

Anyways. I was interested in the story, and through all the amateur work I could grasp something from it. The two girls are great actresses, and Mira Sorvino portrays precisely the thin line between a likable weak person and a wreck that screws up their children.

Somewhere I heard this: some people don't have to work their way into the center of the stage. They can pull strings and buy themselves into it. Question is: are they ready for it?

Details

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 October 2014 (Netherlands)

Also Known As:

Perfect Sisters

Filming Locations:

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Company Credits

Production Co:

Julijette, Stan & Deliver Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

96 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1