The Sisters Brothers

The Sisters Brothers (2018) travels between Oregon and California in 1851. Eli and Charlie Sisters kill people for a boss. Their new job is to find a man who has discovered a chemical method for finding gold. Along the way Eli starts thinking about leaving the work, and the film becomes less a western than the story of a man who wants to change career. The source is Patrick deWitt's novel. It is Jacques Audiard's first film in English, a French director entering an American genre from outside, and that shows. It was shot in Spain and Romania rather than the United States. John C. Reilly plays Eli and produced it; he found the novel and took it to Audiard. Joaquin Phoenix plays Charlie, with Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed as the other two men. It won the Silver Lion for direction at Venice. It failed at the box office. The best detail in it is a toothbrush: Eli sees one for the first time in a hotel and learns how to use it. The film tells progress through small things like that. It runs 121 minutes. Good for: unconventional westerns, stories about brothers, and quiet character change. Less good for: the pacing is uneven and the film changes genre halfway. The violence is sudden and graphic. The last section is too gentle for many viewers and the story does not quite end.