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Review:
 “Happy
families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own
way.” - Okay, it's the opening line from Leo Tolstoy's “Anna
Karenina” and not Anton Chekhov's “Three Sisters,” but it's quite
germane to the subject at hand. This is one unhappy family.
Richard Alfieri's screen adaptation of his theatrical update of
Chekhov's original play begins years before, with the Prior
sisters walking out on their dad. We then cut to the present,
where the girls are now grown up and the elder two, Olga(Mary
Stuart Masterson) and Marcia(Maria Bello), are setting up a
surprise party for the third Irene(Erika Christensen), who's just
turned 22. Happy, right? Nope.
Marcia is in a lousy marriage with psychologist Vincent Glass(Tony
Goldwyn), Olga is trying to hide her sexuality in order to remain
chancellor of the University, the fourth member of the trio,
brother Andrew(Alessandro Nivola) is engaged to Nancy(Elizabeth
Banks), whom everybody else hates because she's too low class.
Added to this slightly lethal mix are the close friends,
Harry(Steven Culp), who arrives from back home in order to have an
affair with Marcia, Gary Sokol(Eric McCormack), who's an extremely
snarky poli sci professor, and philosophy prof David Turzin(Chris
O'Donnell), both of whom are in love with Irene, and Dr.
Chebrin(Rip Torn) who likes to read lurid headlines from the
tabloids out loud, and remains for no real reason but to annoy
Gary.
The arguments begin almost immediately, with Marcia insulting
Nancy and Nancy insulting right back, Then Marcia bickers with
Vincent and Gary spouts increasingly nasty one liners. Happy happy
joy joy.
We've got a wonderful cast chewing the scenery like there's no
tomorrow. This is primarily Bello's movie, but everyone else
manages to chew the scenery for at least one scene, if not more.
The only real problem is is that it's too literary for some
people's taste, and a bit too stagey, but that's not a reason to
miss it.
Eric Lurio
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