«Bad Sisters», an ingenious and funny thriller about five Irish sisters (grade 8) – Corriere.it

It’s an ingenious and entertaining thriller that grabs your attention Bad sisters also because it sticks the knife into family ties, in the story of 5 sisters, the Garvey, who live near Dublin and have promised to support each other after the untimely death of their parents. But there is a but, a big but: each has a broken sentimental situation, there is an unmarried girl, there is a young girl, there is a poor girl who has lost an eye, but above all there is Grace who has married a treacherous man. with all possible defects: arrogant, treacherous, homophobic, liar, a sum of the main vices, a summary of Molire’s comedies. And if the wife bears, dedicated to raising a daughter, the four sisters at some point, even to help their relative, decide to kill him, they can’t take it anymore. That things go differently, after many attempts, can be guessed at some point in the 10-episode series created by Sharon Horgan (also a good actress, Eva) and Dave Finkel and Brett Baer, ​​to be seen on Apple TV + and inspired by the Belgian “Clan “.

Dubliners love to swim on the beach, have a tough character, like the bristly, guttural sound of Irish speech, already heard in Ken Loach’s films. The story, the black comedy, starts from the end, in the first episode the funeral of the perfidious Jean Paul (Claes Bang, cruel, vindictive and violent) is already made but then the story rewinds in flash back and each little sister exposes her character, his story, his illusions, even of work as well as sentimental. The little sisters are targeted by the two insurer brothers who risk, if the policy has to be paid, to go bankrupt and then they industrialize to find evidence of guilt on a suspicious death and this becomes a film within the film, putting two other characters on the track. well chosen: the elder brother, with a wife in childbirth, and the younger brother (the very launched Daryl McCormack who you will see as an escort in the film with Emma Thompson) who without knowing, gets on with the youngest sister-in-law, causing embarrassing situations.

Opened by a theme by Leonard Cohen, the original series also in the Irish setting and everything leads us to believe, given the abundance of characters and neuroses and unsolved problems, that there will be a sequel. It is also funny how the rega goes to fish for moments from the past, like choosing chapters almost at random in the collection of the lives of the little sisters Eva, Grace, Ursula, Bibi and Becka, the young girl in love. Let’s take a closer look at them. A praise to Sharon Horgan who in addition to being the creator, also her elder sister Eva, single, protective and infertile, therefore with a handicap towards the male gender. But also Anne-Marie Duff unhappy, woody suffocated, highly credible in the role of the victim wife Grace, the second elder sister who bears the worst temper on the square and also discovers some secret vices of this bad man and informer, who obliges his wife. to keep his distance from his sisters. Middle sister Ursula Eva Birthistle, with husband, three children and also a lover in charge who is discovered by her brother-in-law who threatens to inform her husband. Bibi Garney instead Sarah Greene, the second youngest sister, mother of an adopted son and an enemy of Jean Paul who caused the car accident during which she lost an eye and walks around with a black blindfold, like John Ford.

Finally, Ewe Hewson the little Becka, aspiring young masseuse who falls into the seductive traps of the young music-loving insurer, Matthew, who is not treacherous, only naive and tied by a difficult relationship with his brother (Brian Gleeson) who kept a family truth hidden from him and managed in way to bankrupt the company; and finally, it cannot be missing, there is a young gay colleague (Assad Bouab). The first episode of the series has an undisclosed title (the caz… .o) and besides, the perfidious Jean Paul is always called as the Prick which in Italian they romantically translated fool, while it would be caz… one. Excellent satisfaction, as befits a yellow-black who is curious about the affairs of a populous female family, showcasing prototypes but worked with spirit and acted with an originality that borders on humor, even when the rate of morality of the group it lowers and resets, yielding to the dark comedy, pushing the curiosity of the ending. But it retains the team spirit that distinguishes the series with single ladies in charge such as the comedy by Thomas and then twice the film “8 women”, also quite bad, which in some way is linked to this series that demonstrates balance delicate of our morality.