Sisters: Fey & Poehler Bring Down the House

I put off watching Sisters because it did not get stellar reviews. However, having finally watched it, this movie is right up my alley. Two of my all-time favorite comediennes spending two hours delivering one-liners and making fools of themselves: what's not to love?

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler play Kate and Maura Ellis, sisters who are very close but very different. Kate is the screw-up, a single mom unable to hold down a job and a complete disappointment to her extremely responsible daughter, Haley (Madison Davenport). Maura is the good sister, the designated driver and mother hen who thinks it's her job to help everyone she meets. When their parents decide to sell their childhood home, the sisters reunite in Orlando to clean out their bedrooms and read their diaries, which reveal the very different lives they led as teenagers. Kate decides they need to throw one last epic party so Maura can finally have the fun she never had in high school and make out with James, the hot guy who lives across the street (Ike Barinholtz, playing the romantic lead in a role that is very different from his usual shtick on The Mindy Project).

It's not a revelatory concept, and the script follows every movie you've ever seen where a party goes out of control and a house gets trashed. What is hilarious, however, is that this is a rager being thrown by a couple of women in their forties, and when they realize all their friends are responsible adults who show up on time at 8:30 for a party, drastic action is called for. Directed by Jason Moore and written by the brilliant Paula Pell (an SNL writer of long standing), the movie feels like a series of SNL sketches strung together in perfect harmony, featuring cameos from favorites like Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, Samantha Bee, Horatio Sanz, and John Cena, who is making quite the name for himself on the comedy circuit.

Unsurprisingly, Fey and Poehler are hilarious and in sync, dancing, bonding, and arguing like a genuine pair of sisters who both love and annoy each other. Sisters features every kind of humor you can think of - one-liners, pratfalls, drunken folly, and a particularly unfortunate incident with a music box featuring a ballerina dancing to Fur Elise. It is over-the-top, profane, and hilarious, exactly what you need when you just want to laugh for two hours. It's nothing new but it's familiar and fabulous and you will find something quotable and memorable by the time you're done. I could watch Poehler  learning how to pronounce her Korean pedicurist's name all day long - is it a joke we've seen a million time before? Sure. Does that make it any less funny? Nope.