Settle in for our conversational review of The Sisters Brothers, Jacques Audiard’s adaptation of the novel by Patrick DeWitt. All three of us loved the film, and we took some very different impressions away with us.
Beware… the following contains plot spoilers.
Lynsey: I love a Western, am a total sucker for one, my Dad’s influence and the legacy of watching so much John Wayne as a child. The Sisters Brothers appealed to me on first principles. Although it wasn’t my first choice film to see that day (Happy as Lazzaro was on at an inconvenient time).
Martin: I feel a little intimidated by Westerns – this great genre that I should love – maybe I’ve not found enough of the great, easily accessible ones. Maybe because I consider it a genre for my Dad? Films like The Sisters Brothers dispel some of the stigma around them being hard work; a slog. It flows so well, never weighty or over-encumbered with stuff to say, or setting to set.
Lynsey: Yeah, I really agree that they can be intimidating, because inevitably when someone (in recent decades) wants to make a Western they want to make an ‘important film with universal themes’. They tend to want to say A LOT. Plus… a lot of them are kinda grim…
Emmett: Is this even a Western? I’m not so sure. It wasn’t American. And I feel like Westerns should be. On the face of it, yes, there were horses and hats and guns and brothels. And there was gold. The burgeoning American Dream. But the journeys taken were not so much across panoramic landscapes, despite there being a chase of sorts.
Martin: Great point, on whether this is a Western. Geographically, but not philosophically?
Emmett: The journeys were more internal. Though no less vast for that. Sure, Sergio Leone is a European interpreting the Western, but his Spaghetti versions were very much based in the American tradition of ‘The Duke’. In The Sisters Brothers the landscapes didn’t seem vast to me, the horizons not so far off. This was a more personal west.
Lynsey: And, like Leone, Jacques Audiard shot his Western in Europe. For my shame, this is the first of his films I’ve seen, although I remember the praise for Rust and Bone (2012) and A Prophet (2009).
Martin: I loved Rust and Bone, and really liked A Prophet. There might be something through all three around hinting at an underlying mystic element. This is most prevalent in A Prophet. But I may be projecting this onto the others when it’s not really there. But make sure you get to see Rust and Bone.
Lynsey: I will! Alexandre Desplat’s score also really impressed me, that relentless onward beat and forward motion, it made me happy in the cinema! It really recalled to me previous Western ‘hunt is on’ scores.
As for the performances, they felt so true. Martin I saw your tweet that you used to think you didn’t like Joaquin Phoenix [who plays Charlie Sisters, one half of the titular brothers]. Well, I think I’ve been going through a rough time with him as well. I can’t not be influenced by Gladiator (dir. Ridley Scott, 2000), but I loved that film. It was those more left-field choices since then that soured me on him, what I pegged as his self-indulgence (like the Casey Affleck project I’m Still Here). But this is the most I have watched him and felt I was watching a ‘relatable’ person – this is the most human he’s played I think! Which I know isn’t the be all and end all… but once in a lifetime it’s almost a relief to see.
Martin: Yeah, I’ve mentioned that maybe that indelible role in Gladiator affected young film-going me, and I may have conflated my hate for the character with a dislike for the actor. The recent trio of Her (dir. Spike Jonze, 2013), You Were Never Really Here (dir. Lynne Ramsay, 2017) and now The Sisters Brothers have shown his amazing range – name three roles by the same actor that are so wildly different.
Emmett: I really think this is a break out role for Phoenix. Obviously not in the fame stakes, but in terms of the box that casting directors invariably put him in his whole career. That of the ‘wild man’. The guys with the crazed look in his eye. And here, too, his portrayal of Charlie, initially, would have seemed a well worn path to followers of Phoenix’s career. But then something very unexpected happened – he normalised. Charlie retreated from the role of loose canon and became firmly tethered. The believability of this transition belies the complexity of Phoenix’s performance.
Lynsey: Jake Gyllenhaal is yet another actor I’ve been very slowly warming to, and his take on the character of John Morris was pitch perfect for me [Morris is the scout, sent to find the man the brothers have been hired to kill].
Martin: I love Gyllenhaal, and he’s great here, but it’s the two pairings, including the Nightcrawler (dir. Dan Gilroy, 2014) reunion of Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed [as Hermann Kermit Warm, the man with the bounty on his head], that are so perfectly balanced. The contrast of characters in each, and how Audiard oscillates between them is expertly paced. Phoenix and John C. Reilly [Eli Sisters, the other half of the brothers] make a perfect double act. None of the buffoonery that Reilly has often fallen into; he’s almost the straight man to Phoenix’s irresponsible younger brother. It’s as if the layers behind the characters are revealed – how they’ve come to be as they are – that the film really shines, and both characters are strengthened, and both actors excel.
Emmett: I loved the voice Gyllenhaal bestowed on Morris. Like Daniel Day-Lewis’ Lincoln, I felt it was born rather than contrived.
Lynsey: I remember the book coming out, and a friend really loved it, but somehow its branding had never appealed to me, I couldn’t get a handle on what it was. Watching the film, I perhaps understand more why it wasn’t a straightforward sell because it is an unusual tale (although clearly, for John C. Reilly, it was a straightforward sell because I think he snapped up the rights sharpish).
One of the aspects that struck me most was the allegory of the tale. Hermann Warm’s chemical formula that could illuminate the gold in the water was a catalyst for change for Morris, Eli, and Charlie. Not only did his ‘alchemical’ concoctions show up what was of value in the California rivers, it pushed what was of value in these lost men to the surface. It shows them, briefly, the dream of another life. The camaraderie of the prospecting scenes was wonderful.
Emmett: Did any of them get what they wanted? Probably not. Or at least, not what any of them thought they wanted.
Lynsey: And although the dream wasn’t realised, in a very tangible way, for the Sisters Brothers themselves, you’re right, it does end well. Meeting Morris and Warm is a turning point. The theme of change throughout was so prevalent, and not only does the joining with Morris and Warm offer the possibility of a utopian future, when this future falls apart it leaves them utterly altered. Charlie has lost the tools that made him who he was, forcing Eli to assume the role of protector that he felt he should have played since childhood, since Charlie dealt with their father. The symbolism of Charlie’s injuries, and the role it forces Eli into, seems to be driving the film along to an inevitable conclusion.
Emmett: These dreams started out prosaically. Stories cinema goers have seen hundreds of times. Guys with nothing make something of their lives. Usually, with a hand flicking the catch of a holster. Where success is materially measured, of course. And by that scale, these characters’ stories end unfulfilled. Two in death, two in apparent retreat. But ultimately, theirs was a collective dream. One of self-determination, of independence and ultimately of contentment.
Lynsey: And yes, at its close, the film entirely swerves, and we end up with this unexpected and beautiful, and very emotionally satisfying conclusion! That kind of feels like a return to the womb for these two scarred men.
Emmett: And by that yard stick this must count as a Hollywood ending.
A Room With No View 