Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Irishchatter Seeing this movie made me realize how sad Lea and Christine were being extremely fragile types weren't really involved with this world. They knew well the damage they had done and how it involved by being found out! I was surprised that they didn't even communicate with their employer and her daughter much because the pair of them were really good to them by putting the girls to work together! What really made then tick off, that will be a question throughout my lifetime because we won't ever know what really happened on that night.This movie really gave it all including Julie Walters who is the best actress out there and all the actresses that were involved in the film :)

Jay Raskin This is not nearly as good as "In Cold Blood," or "Psycho," but it is a riveting crime movie. While not as graphic as other movies, it is graphic enough to be somewhat disturbing. I am not sure if I can recommend it to anyone who isn't a deep film noir cineaste.I was surprised in reading the reviews about the lack of mention of Joely Richardson's outstanding performance. Yes, the entire cast was fine, but she really gave the memorable performance. To me, she matches Gene Tierney in "Leave Her to Heaven, Sharon Stone in "Basic Instinct," Jennifer Jason Leigh in "Single White Female" and Simone Signoret in "Diabolique." She's manages to act both convincingly erotic in one scene and psychotic in the next. This movie manages to be both exploitative and not exploitative at the same time. It does play up the more sensational elements of the crime, but it also has some simple and thoughtful images and scenes that make you sympathetic towards the people involved. The scene of the maids picking up hundreds of tiny pearls that have fallen on a carpet is an example. It suggest the animal-like treatment they faced on a daily basis.It is not a very pleasant or fun film, but it will alternatively warm and chill you.

gradyharp There is a major player in this extremely fine film who goes all but unmentioned: the work of cinematographer Ashley Rowe is some of the finest on film, creating an atmosphere solely within the confines of a home made dark by lack of light and by brooding madness and murder. The effect achieved is nothing short of miraculous and further adds to the importance of this under-rated movie.Based on the infamous Papin sisters' murder of their employer and daughter in 1932 in France, SISTER MY SISTER is based on a play by Wendy Kesselman (who also wrote the mesmerizing screenplay) and is directed by the imaginatively fine Nancy Meckler. Two sisters - Christine the eldest (Joely Richardson) and Lea (Jodhi May) are shown during the titles in black and white as poor orphans separated to different ends. As the film begins Christine has introduced her estranged beloved Lea to her employer, the rigid and strange Madame Danzard (Julie Walters) and her wallflower daughter Isabelle (Sophie Thursfield). Lea is hired by the penny pinching Madame Danzard and the two sisters co-serve as maids to the household. Christine and Lea view each other as not only sisters but as lovers and it is this latter role that leads Madame Danzard (spying contemptibly on the girls) that is the final straw in Madame's mistreatment of the girls that leads to the rather shocking murder of both Madame Danzard and Isabelle. We know from the start - both from the infamous case and from the opening sequences where the blood of the deed is seen along the stairwell - what the ending will be: it is the progress to that end that concerns the film.Each of the actresses is brilliant in their roles, roles that are far cries from the usual types that each actress has played. Julie Walters manages to ooze vitriol while moments later being oddly comedic in her la-la land of dancing to her Victrola. Joely Richardson is terrifyingly strange and Jodhi May says more with her facial expressions than legions of actors do with complex scripts. But again the physical ominous presence of the house of bad things is so magnificently created by Rowe's creative photography that is becomes of equal importance as a character. The musical score by Stephen Warbeck works solidly to convey the descent into madness of the two sisters. A brilliant tour de force for all concerned and highly recommended for those who love fine acting and dark thrillers. Grady Harp

Jay Kauffman Film is based on the infamous Papin case which rocked France in 1933. In the town of Le Mans, Monsieur Lancelin, a retired solicitor, lived with his wife and daughter. Seven years earlier, the family had hired two sisters as maids, the elder Christine and younger Lea. Madame Lancelin was strict and would wear white gloves to check for dust and there was surprisingly little personal interaction between the family and maids. One afternoon Monsieur Lancelein came home to pick up his wife and daughter for a dinner engagement and found the door bolted. After awhile police got in through a back window. They found the bodies of Madame Lancelin and her daughter; heads bludgeoned beyond recognition and legs carved like pieces of French bread. Weapons were a pewter jug, hammer and knife. Unique to this case, was the fact that their eyes had been gouged out while they were alive. The maids were found upstairs and confessed. The younger had twice blown out the house fuse and feared reprisal from the mistress of the house. The maids attacked them both when they arrived home; the younger following what the older did. The case became a cause celebre in France as an example of the cultural chasm between employer and servant. The case was also made into a play The Maids by Genet and another film - Murderous Maids. Interesting that all psychiatric testimony about the pair (incest and an extremely dysfunctional background and family) was dismissed by the small town jury but later resulted in such evidence being admitted into French trials.