The Sisters Brothers
2018 · Directed by Jacques Audiard
Original language: English
- western
- drama
- comedy
The story
Oregon, 1851. Hermann Kermit Warm, a chemist and aspiring gold prospector, keeps a profitable secret that the Commodore wants to know, so he sends the Sisters brothers, two notorious assassins, to capture him on his way to California.
What it’s like
Warm amber and dust-brown light, with sunsets that spill across open prairie and muddy riverbanks, and a wide, rolling Western landscape framed with an almost painterly patience. Director Jacques Audiard moves between sweeping vistas and close, intimate two-shots in saloons and campfire camps, the camera settling into long, unhurried compositions. The score is playful and bouncy, a fiddle-and-banjo lilt that gives way to quiet, rain-soaked stillness. Its vibe is wry, bittersweet, and easygoing, the kind of road-weary oddball adventure best suited to a lazy afternoon or a slow evening with a drink. The pace is loose and meandering, with comic beats and small digressions that let its odd pairing of hired killers breathe. Its emotional register is tender beneath the dark humour, following a hard-edged brother bond fraying and softening as each man reconsiders what he is willing to do. Violence is present and sudden, with a few brief shootouts and deaths that land quickly and without lingering gore; it is not gentle, but it is not relentless. Made for viewers who enjoy grounded Westerns with humour, melancholy, and a warm streak of male friendship.
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