With their massive blue eyes and weird mouths, Tobey and Jake at least look like real brothers.
Tobey Maguire is a a captain (!) in the marines and is off to Afghanistan for a second tour. Jake Gyllenhaal is his brother who just out of jail, looks after Tobey's family when he goes missing presumed dead.
This is a remake of a film originally made in 2004 by Danish director Susanne Bier, this time directed by Jim Sheriden who made In America and like that film uses real sisters to play his young female siblings.
He really gets amazing performances out of them and they are by far the best actors in this film - naturalistic, warm and truthful, they come across way better than the stricken oscar baiting performance of Tobey Maguire or the wooden Natalie Portman. Jakes fine.
Everything looks and feels icy and calculated and ultimately disappointing, I'm off to find the original.
NO - should be called "Sisters" for the wonderful Isabelle and Maggie Cahill.
