What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that the film includes sexual references (images and language); indeed, it opens on fragmented shots of a drunken sexual encounter in a bathroom at high school reunion. Focused on the tensions between two grownup sisters, one a rowdy rebel and the other a prototypical "good girl," the movie pays particular attention to familial conflicts, secrets, and traumatic history (the sisters discuss the mother's suicide, committed when they were children; their father is remarried to a woman who treats them disdainfully). Characters use some crude language, usually in anger or surprise, including multiple uses of the s-word and hell, and slang for sex and genitals. One character reads aloud from a romance novel (including predictable, here comic, references to heaving breasts and sexual passion); and an episode of Sex and the City on TV refers to sexual activity. The rebellious sister wears skimpy clothing, including bikinis and underwear. Characters drink (to the point of vomiting) and smoke. The rebellious sister steals money and other items, sometimes from family members.
- Families can talk about the sisters' long-term, mutual resentments and distrusts. How does the sisters' competition for attention shape their relationship? How can they reconcile with one another by sharing basic truths? (The fact that Maggie's dyslexia has remained undiagnosed all her life is especially troubling.) How does the father's dishonesty about his troubles with their mother and her mother/their grandmother also a source of conflict?