Sister My Sister 1994

In 1933 France, Joely Richardson plays Christine, the maid to the well-to-do middle-aged widow Julie Walters (Madame Danzard) and her teenage daughter Sophie Thursfield Isabelle Danzard. Her younger sister, Jodhi May Lea, is hired on Christine’s recommendation. The two sisters find themselves increasingly alienated from their employer, separated by stubborn walls of class and judgment. The Danzards look down on the sisters for trivial pretenses, and soon it becomes the norm for the two pairs of women to scarcely speak to one another directly.

With only each other to rely on, the sisters’ bond grows tense and increasingly intimate, a private connection that heightens the friction between the sisters and the Danzards. Both women carry trauma from strained relationships with their mother and from the restrictive expectations of the church they inhabit. Lea, who was her mother’s favorite, finds herself cut off after Christine convinces Lea to stop sharing all their earnings; this rift pushes them further apart, though they still cling to one another in precarious solidarity. As Lea’s independence grows, their earnings dwindle and their work slips, a decline that Madame Danzard notes with clinical, meticulous attention. Rumors swirl that Isabelle might marry and leave, fueling Christine’s paranoia that Lea could vanish with her when that day comes. Yet Lea reassures her sister that this will not happen, even as Christine’s fear spirals into a belief that she might be a monster like their mother. Christine’s anger is clear, but Lea remains emotionally fragile and stubbornly loyal.

A fateful accident changes everything: an iron fuse blows, setting Isabelle’s blouse on fire as Lea irons it. Strapped for cash and time, the sisters resign themselves to their bleak prospects; when Madame Danzard and Isabelle return from a shopping trip, Christine tries to explain the mishap. The widow bluntly reveals she knows about the sisters’ incestuous relationship and warns they will never work again once word spreads. Enraged, the sisters attack and murder both Madame Danzard and Isabelle. The film closes with a crime report on the state of the bodies, a knock at the mansion door, and the sisters clinging to each other as an investigator questions them while Christine’s voice cuts through with a desperate scream for Lea.