Movie Review: Perfect Sisters (2014)

The movie stars Abigail Breslin, Georgie Henley, Mira Sorvino and James Russo.

When I picked out this movie on Netflix last night, it was actually an unusual move for me. I'm not a big fan of true crime films because, more often than not, they tend to be predictable. This is mostly because, at some point in the movie, the person is going to get caught. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a story to base the movie off of.

And, as expected, that was actually the case with this film, which could have also been given the title "What Not to Do if You Want to Get Away With Murder." The sisters' plan was pretty sound and they could have easily gotten away with it. But, the second they started telling their friends and word leaked out at school, it was pretty obvious someone was eventually going to tell the cops.

That being said, this movie did prove to be much more entertaining than I expected it to be.

First, I loved how the sisters pretty much changed personalities after the murder was committed. Prior to the murder, the older sister (Breslin) seemed to be the one holding things together. After the murder, the younger sister (Henley) assumed that role. I thought this was somewhat interesting because, most of the time, there's usually just one person calling the shots and forcing their partner into the crime. They were, for the most part, equals throughout the movie and stood by each other even as their world was crumbling.

I think Sorvino also deserves a little bit of credit for her portrayal of their mother. For this movie to work, their crime needed to be somewhat justifiable but, at the same time, you had to feel a bit sorry for their victim. And, Sorvino managed to create a character that, while she couldn't get her life together, was still somewhat easy to feel sorry for and care about.

As a result of that, even though the movie did a good job of making me understand the girls' reason behind the murder, I also never reached the point where I hoped they wouldn't get caught. That is something I do feel made the film much more entertaining.

As I said before, the ending is somewhat predictable. However, the overall movie is pretty decent to watch and I definitely enjoyed it more than I expected to.

My Grade: A