Pairing Amy Poehler with Tina Fey should be enough to sell you a ticket to Sisters. These hysterical comedians have been honing their chemistry on multiple projects for years, from the Golden Globes gig to the SNL Weekend Update desk and, yes, even Baby Mama. Their latest collaboration has them playing Sisters with an ax to grind against their parents. The trailer below explains it all.
Directed by Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect), Sisters stars Amy Poehler and Tina Fey as grown siblings who learn – somewhat shockingly – that their parents (James Brolin, Dianne Weist) have sold their childhood home. The sisters are annoyed that they never had the opportunity to have their one big blowout party under their parents’ roof… the type of house-destroying shindig that all of us have thrown at least once in our lives. What, only me? (Sorry, mom and dad.) So they blow the doors off the recently sold abode with an all-star party that includes, at the very least, scene stealing WWE superstar John Cena.
I love how Fey and Poehler have reversed the dynamic that they brought to Baby Mama, where Tina played the responsible "adult" who had to work with the immature and largely unpredictable Amy as they worked through a surrogacy. This time, Poehler looks like the straight-laced sister who has to learn how to let her hair down… even if, in the process, it puts equally funny Ike Barinholtz in a compromising position involving a ballerina statue.
The presence of Jason Moore behind the lens gives us real hope for Sisters, as he proved with Pitch Perfect that he understands how to get the funniest material out of close-bonded female performers. On top of that, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are working off of a screenplay from a female screenwriter in Paula Pell, whose credits include Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock and the Academy Awards.
Sisters also finds roles for the very funny Maya Rudolph, Kate McKinnon, Heather Matarazzo, Rachel Dratch and Bobby Moynihan. The only issue I can see is that it’s opening on December 18, which – if you don’t realize – is the same day that Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens. So yeah, I’m not sure who will choose to see Sisters instead of Star Wars, no matter how good it looks. I’ve heard of counterprogramming, of course. But making a dent in the behemoth that is and will be Star Wars will be damn near impossible.
