[usr 3]
In 1850s Oregon, a gold prospector is chased by the infamous duo of assassins, the Sisters brothers.
Eli and Charlie Sisters (John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix) are brothers, long gone from home and well on the road to infamy as a deadly duo. Based on Patrick Dewitt’s novel of the same name, the crux of the plot is built around a wily, genteel foreigner who claims to have concocted a powerful gold finding formula. Naturally, this being the 1850s between Oregon and San Francisco, there are a lot of men who would kill for such an elixir. And this is how the Sisters brothers come into the assignment of hunting down Hermann Kermit Warm (Riz Ahmed) to torture him for his recipe before killing him on behalf of The Commodore (Rutger Hauer).
As far as this part of the plot goes, it is all typical Western film fare. Dust everywhere, horses, canteens, grizzled unkempt men. The scenery is sparse outdoors and the light dim indoors. Glasses clink, hooves clop, gunshots crack. But below the surface of this traditionally styled western, is another story of a family in crisis. Eli Sisters (Reilly) is more of a gentle man than his career choice would have you believe and at 35 years old, he’s tired of running and gunning for blood. Charlie (Phoenix), on the other hand, is dangerously suited for the life of a gunman and he is slowly forgetting that life can be enjoyed any other way.
Meanwhile, Warm and his would-be capturer to newly turned associate, John Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal), are panning for gold beyond their wildest imaginations and dreamily planning for a society free of greed and corporate lust. These details of the plot feel strangely out of place during an era when it seems unlikely that society would have already birthed those seeking to escape a deeper level of human depravity. Settling the West, staking claims to land, and panning for gold was already the expression of freedom more than most men would have hoped for. The evolution of masculinity in this film is far more advanced than what is believable for early settlers in the wild west. In this way, the film uses a setting from the long-ago past to reconstruct the dilemmas of men perhaps more relevant to today.
The emotional crisis of Eli Sisters is the larger expression of this emotional dilemma. He is the older of the two and he feels that he failed long ago when the burden of their father was only resolved at the courage of Charlie’s violence. Now he wonders if he can ever leave this life of bloodlust. Can Charlie’s thirst for power be quenched with anything resembling normalcy? Will he be forced to leave Charlie behind? Will his guilt for failing his little brother always haunt him for one reason or another? Eli is a man caught between a rock and a hard place and Charlie is completely without understanding.
The technical elements of the film are captivating to this notion of inner and outer turmoil. At times, the camera works as the sight of the character, using a blurred focus, limited panning, dream images. The musical score is a compilation of fiddles, banjos, and rhythmic spoons sped up into a low-key electronica tempo and heightened by a futuristic dissonance. Additionally, the dialogue is infused with present-day language and progressive reasoning. A prostitute is caught unawares by Eli Sisters’ pent-up emotionalism and she reflects aloud that she is not used to being treated this way. Men use the f-word in forms that were not common for the 1850s instead of merely a derogatory reference to the noun act of copulation. More than that, the story does not always flow like a typical western, nor does it end that way. The cast does an excellent job in portraying the emotional nuance despite the surprising degree of overlap between present and past traditions. There are some nuggets of gold in “The Sisters Brothers,” so don’t miss out on what could turn out to be an enriching experience.
In theaters Friday, October 5th
