Movie Review: Sisters

2015 was all about unlikely collaborations: Taylor Swift and Apple Music; Coldplay and Barack Obama; Netflix and “chill”; Leo and that bear.

But that’s all behind us now, and as far as the movies are concerned, 2016 is all about expected, long-hoped-for reunions: Zoolander and Hansel; Batman and Superman; Jeff Goldblum and alien hordes.

Okay, “long-hoped-for” might be pushing it.

None of those are as scintillating as the big-screen merger of besties Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, former Saturday Night Live newsreaders, Golden Globes-hosting Voltron and overall comedy #kweenz (to speak in the parlance of our times).

In Jason Moore’s Sisters, Fey and Poehler get to right the wrongs of 2008’s inoffensive, flatly-received Baby Mama, their underwhelming first crack at big screen stardom.

There, Fey played the responsible one and Poehler, the wildcard. (In the wake of Liz Lemon and Leslie Knope, it’s easy to forget that Poehler used to be the one with the fleet of oddball characters under her belt and that Fey seemed like the ultimate figure of having-it-togetheritness on SNL.)

Screenwriter Paula Pell – also of Saturday Night Live – has her two leads trade places this time around, giving them an actual sisterly relationship to explain their otherwise freakish, twin-like chemistry, and the perfect opportunity to wreak havoc: an out-of-control party of near Biblical proportions. We’re talking Old Testament here. By the end, it’s not the police that need calling to wind things up, but FEMA.

Sisters has a plot, should you need it (and you shouldn’t): Katie Ellis (Fey) is a reckless, forty-something beautician whose own daughter (Madison Davenport) no longer trusts her as a caregiver. On the other hand, Katie’s younger sister, Maura (Poehler), is almost too reliable; at the picture’s start, she tries to “save” two homeless people, only to wind-up offending what turns out to be a hipster in tattered clothes and the owner of a co-op.

When they learn their folks (Dianne Wiest, James Brolin) are selling their family home, the two sisters head back to Florida to pick up their old, teenage belongings. Flooded with nostalgia – and booze – they plot one final blow-out party, in which straight-laced Maura can finally let loose and hopefully get over her divorce, preferably with the help of cute handyman neighbour James (an adorable Ike Barinholtz).

Katie, to prove she can indeed get her adult on, agrees to be the sober “party mum”, and instead urges their fellow forty-something guests to embrace the bacchanalian impulses of their youth. Boy, do they. The intrusion of hulking drug-dealer Pazuzu (John Cena, surprise deadpan genius) and some devious sabotaging by mean girl Brinda (Maya Rudolph, fellow #kween) kicks things up a notch, long after all notches were seemingly kicked.

Sisters is riotously funny, if not totally attuned to its leads’ strange, hyper-specific humour. A film of this scale just can’t match the unique brand of weirdness that came with 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation; two of this century's best shows. As a result, this is somewhat watered-down Fey and Poehler.

At least the two of them get to be more raunchy and foul-mouthed than they’ve ever been before. There is sheer delight to be found in watching these ingenious improvisers tinker with an expanded dictionary. Wiest even gets to deploy the most cutting use of the C-bomb this side of a Guy Ritchie flick.

Pell’s screenplay smartly arrives at the centerpiece party fairly quickly, while Moore steadily ramps up the chaos to ensure the feature doesn’t overstay its welcome or repeat itself. (However, much of their good work was done when they agreed to concoct a scenario in which cameras would wind up pointing at Fey and Poehler.)

Samantha Bee, Bobby Moynihan, Kate McKinnon and Greta Lee are each hilarious as fellow revelers, yet stealing a film out from under these leading ladies is as futile as missions get.

It helps that, after more than two decades in comedy, Fey and Poehler have craftily become fine dramatic actresses too. Sure, the repeated platitude of “a house is a building; home is a feeling” inspires eye-rolls, but Katie and Maura’s personal struggles are conveyed authentically and with great empathy.

Is this the collabo between our brightest, savviest comedy players that we’ve been dreaming of? Not quite. It’s easy to want more from Sisters, if only because Fey and Poehler have already given us so much.

3.5/5

In cinemas January 7. Rating TBC.