# Other Sister, The (1999)

### reviewed by
David E. Smith

"The Other Sister" (1999) - Diane Keaton, Juliette Lewis, Giovanni Ribisi

"The Other Sister" features Juliette Lewis and Giovanni Ribisi playing characters with unspecified mental disabilities. Since this has little bearing on the fact that it's a very good movie, it will only be mentioned twice more during this review.

In part, "The Other Sister" is about a character most of us can relate to: the overprotective parent, in the form of Diane Keaton. Lewis has spent most of her life away from home at a boarding school, but finally comes home. She has to re-adjust to her sisters ("a dedicated underachiever and a gay workaholic," quips Keaton), her parents, a new school, a whole new environment.

Keaton thinks she knows what's best for all her daughters, while her more laid-back husband (Tom Skerritt) is generally willing to let them make their own mistakes.

Lewis and Ribisi, both outcasts of a sort, meet and go through all the traditional courting rituals, right down to a Halloween dance at their trade school (where the always-ambitious Lewis is studying to become a veterinary assistant).

That's right, it's a love story. That means it's bright, generally cheerful, and we all know how it ends. It's also very well done, invoking only a few of the cliches inherent to the genre. The unique nature of the leads' roles even allows humor in some surprising places (watch for the "sex talk," the ongoing references to "The Graduate," or the comic-erotic use of marching band music).

"The Other Sister" is blatantly formulaic, from the requisite overbearing parent to the "falling in love" montage. But everyone on screen practically oozes charm, such that when the expected complication in the relationship comes up, we know on a gut level that everything will be alright.

Matching the positive mood of the movie, the technical credits are about two notches above average. Visually, the film is as bright as its irrepressible characters, and the soundtrack, featuring everyone from Savage Garden to Alison Krauss, is similarly uplifting without being obtrusive.

In fact, it's hard to find anything even remotely depressing happening on-screen. This movie is uber-cheerful, making it almost impossible to not like it. It somehow pulls this off without making it obvious that it's happening.

"The Other Sister" was made by Touchstone Pictures, a part of Disney. So it's not unfair to say that its depiction of mental retardation is about as accurate as "Aladdin's" depiction of the Middle East. But this is the only real failing in an otherwise excellent movie. This sin, while arguably a large one, can be forgiven since the rest of the movie is so darned uplifting.

(This review was originally published in The Capaha Arrow, the student newspaper of Southeast Missouri State University.)

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