While audiences like to watch movie characters who are unlike themselves, the same doesn't always apply -- as in real life -- regarding such characters who face mental challenges. For whatever reason, many people are uncomfortable around the "mentally retarded" and only like to see them, again as in real life, or here, in the movies, as something akin to being "freaks of nature."
By that we mean highly stylized characters such as the "idiot savants" Raymond Babbitt (played by Dustin Hoffman in "Rainman") and David Helfgott (Geoffrey Rush in "Shine") or the simpleminded but murderous Karl Childers in "Sling Blade" so brilliantly played by Billy Bob Thornton. As such, the characters are intriguing or exciting simply because they're atypical and unpredictable.
That's the beauty, however, of the way the characters in "The Other Sister" are presented. They're not talented prodigies, they can't solve complex mathematical problems in their heads faster than a computer, and they don't have any homicidal tendencies.
Well, you may now be asking yourself "What exactly do they do that makes them worth watching?" I'll tell you -- they try to lead as normal a life as possible and end up falling in love while doing so. Exciting? Hardly. Sweet and charming? You bet.
In a film that neither paints such characters as victims nor panders to their special needs, Juliette Lewis ("Cape Fear," "Natural Born Killers") and Giovanni Ribisi ("Saving Private Ryan," "The Postman") deliver completely believable and charming performances that should win over all but the most hardened of cynics.
The overall presentation, however, leaves a bit more to be desired. As presented and running for a bit more than two hours, the film feels as if it prematurely left the editing booth before the final cuts were made. Not only is the film way too long, but it often comes across as extremely haphazard with many scenes seeming too random, unattached to the greater picture and/or orphaned midstream.
In addition, writer/director Garry Marshall ("Pretty Woman," "Beaches") and co-writer Bob Brunner ("Exit To Eden") don't hold back from laying down a thick layer of cliches, overall predictability, and heart-tugging scenes that are a bit too painfully obvious to pull off their much needed natural-feeling effect.
In addition, the supporting characters are either underdeveloped (such as Hector Elizondo from TV's "Chicago Hope" as Danny's confidant as well as the two actresses playing Carla's sisters that includes an out-of-the-blue lesbian subplot) and/or too stereotypically written.
As such, three-time Oscar nominee Diane Keaton ("Marvin's Room," and a victory for "Annie Hall") can't transcend her near one-note overly protective mother character (saddled with artificially feeling mother/daughter conflict scenes), while Tom Skerritt ("Contact," "Steel Magnolias") is left with little to do as the former alcoholic turned nothing more than sympathetic father.
It's those moments between Lewis and Ribisi's characters, however, where the film really works and nearly gives the audience enough reason to forgive and/or overlook the film's other flaws and weaknesses.
While one of the audience's favorite moments will no doubt be when the two innocently and somewhat clinically peruse a "Joy of Sex" manual (which raises the unanswered question of how the two would ever have known about or attained such a book without dying of embarrassment), most of their other moments together are just as equally touching and/or amusing. Both performers are easy to believe in their deliveries, with Lewis doing an exceptional job.
It's just too bad that the rest of the film isn't up to the same caliber, although Marshall's previous work on "Exit to Eden" and the disastrous "Dear God" proved that the enjoyable "Pretty Woman" may have been something of a lark. Good because it doesn't pander, make fun of, or showcase its "challenged" characters as special or too cute, the film could have been much better had as much "hands off" treatment been applied to the rest of it.
Regarding the disc itself, both the audio and video components are top-notch, while a few music videos constitute the supplemental materials.
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