tedg The filmmakers here tried something and failed. It was a noble attempt at something very delicate and I suspect that they will eventually succeed at capturing this balance somehow. Commentors here call it black humor, but there is something more dear here in the children's reach. It isn't Lemony Snicket. Its "The Ice Storm."Failure or not, they did something well. Sarah Polley is an amazing young actress who can do what I call folded acting: where she observes her character and conveys the observation. This allows her to play special roles. Here she is in the story as our surrogate who watches. She can't save the story, but she does her job.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

phildeviltes What a piece of work. This movie is great. First off, I was looking for good movies at the movie chain. Like I used to, I saw the end and not the beginning. How sad... But then, I look at the schedules, and saw it would play another time. Here's my review: the beginning starts a little strange, but still, funny. The grand pa look very in shape. I mean, do you know lot of man that run with white hairs hum? No. Then, he's teaching his most important lesson to his grand son. Who'd know he'll just die after teaching-it? After that, you have this awful scene that serve to say who participate to the creation of the movie. Oh well. I had difficulty to walk after it: turned too much ^^ But let me say that: all of the dialogs seems to have been seriously thinked. Now, I'm really serious about that, because there are movie that could have been a lot better if they looked for what the actors says. Take Mr. and Mrs. Smith, for example: they have all that chat, trying to kill each other, and right after that, they got in a fight and then, they... you know, this have no sense, even if this is amusing. And this is what makes the strength of this movie. All fits.

Pepper Anne If you're tired of all the dime-a-dozen American and Canadian dramas recently produced about shattering the false image of the "normal," happy suburban family like 'Imaginary Heroes,' 'The Ice Storm,' or 'American Beauty,' you might switch to a dark comedy perspective. Canadian production, 'Siblings' is a drastically bitter, cynical look at the "perfect" family.Four step-siblings (perhaps not coincidentally modeling the cast of 'Flowers in the Attic,' minus the blonde mops) are left in the care of their vicious step-parents following the death of their grandfather. Joe (Alex Campbell) is the optimistic, hopeful that the children would rid themselves of these unusually abusive guardians once they all turn eighteen (the two youngest have a long way to go). His step-sister, Margaret (Sarah Gadon), a promiscuous realist, on the other hand, suggests they had just better kill their parents. Luckily, it all happens somewhat accidentally, although the four step-siblings, even in their small town with relatively few people poking into their business on such constant occasion (except for the neighborhood snoop, a mousy character played by Sarah Polley), it might seem easy to do.Unfortunately, a series of mistakes just brings more trouble. But not in really any particularly amusing way. And unfortunately, the progression of the movie, while it has some particularly interesting character studies, offers few real laughs (except from big-eye step-sibling, Danielle) and tends to take longer than necessary to reach its conclusions. I did like, however, that once the parents were out of the picture, the older siblings began to take on their characteristics (although only temporarily, later made poignantly conscious of this by Margaret). For a movie like this, however, I would have to agree with another viewer who wrote that, it would've helped to have offered a lot more humor, especially where offering lots of sardonic sarcasm and irony later in the film.

rattlerblues-1 Dark and brooding locations contrast nicely with the gallows humor and dread of the plucky (sort of) heroes and heroines of this Canadian twist on Very Bad Things vs John Hughes. The parents, not biological to half of the children, are evil. Yet the portrayal and dialogue is less funny and more harrowing than feels just right in a dark comedy like this. There is a level of menace, anger, and retribution that is just TOO palpably real to be slightly amusing. There is a character who pops in, without introduction and continues to show up, unannounced, uninvited and perplexingly devoid of plot motion. This lovely woman is a neighbor that the male hero obsesses over. Why? He needs a woman love interest? Maybe. She develops into a character with a nice dark streak that fits right into the menagerie well. The plot involves murder and the 'oh so comic misadventures that dead bodies can create' or something like that. Something about dead bodies and what to do with them is such a reliable plot device. Here it is handled pretty well. The characters are not made to be idiots (as would be typical in American cinema) but rather smart enough to have seen this sort of dilemma on a multitude of TV shows and now, faced with it in real life, have the added dimensions of fear and anxiety that make their decisions impulsive, ineffective and, subsequently need to be changed. I have always liked the old Hitchcock film, The Trouble With Harry, about the dead body and the number of people in the quaint village who are certain that they are responsible for the body becoming non-living. In some ways SIBLINGS is like that. WHY a 7? Totally sweet rental. For $2 and about 90 minutes of entertainment you could do much worse (Jim Carrey for example). It is offbeat, fresh, has some unexpected twists and dialogue. Wht the hell...Plus, it takes place over Christmas so it is a good antidote to all that saccharine craptacular product that is spewed out annually. That's my opinion.