Review: Sisters

Antonia Prebble, Maria Angelico, and Lucy Durack in Sisters

The Australian series Sisters is streaming now on Netflix. This series has 3 women in the leading roles, an all women director roster, and a ripped from the headlines premise.

Julius Bechly (Barry Otto), a renowned fertility specialist, reveals from his deathbed that at least 100 of the children born to women who visited his clinic were impregnated with his sperm. The aftermath of that explosive announcement forms the basis of the 7 episode season 1.

Maria Angelico in Sisters
Julia is the one who can legitimately call Julius dad and who has been caring for him for years.

Julia (Maria Angelico), who thought she was Julius Bechly’s only child goes into a frantic tailspin at the news. After the initial shock wears off, she calls a meeting of everyone who thinks they might be affected by the news. DNA test kits are passed out. Results are announced on Facebook. Sibling relationships slowly begin to form.

Julia is searching for love, or more specifically for sex. She accidentally has sex with one of her siblings before anyone knows what Julius did. When that hits the news, she’s fired from her job.

Julia is unable to say no to anyone. Very soon her house fills up with live-ins who claim to be her sisters or brothers.

Antonia Prebble in Sisters
That lawyer bitch is bringing a class action suit against the sperm donor.

Edie and Julia were childhood friends. Julius called her Sparky. They now discover that they are sisters. Neither are comfortable with it. The jealousy and rivalry between Edie and Julia is as intense as if they had been raised sisters from birth.

Edie is married to Julia’s former boyfriend Tim (Dan Spielman). Edie is a lawyer. She wants to sue her father and the clinic where his crimes took place.

Dan Spielman in Sisters
Hmm, maybe I should have stuck with Julia.

Edie and Tim are in marriage counseling. A big part of the problem, which Edie won’t face, is that she has the hots for her coworker Amanda (Zindzi Okenyo). One of those ‘this will never happen again’ things keep happening between Edie and Amanda.

Lucy Durack in Sisters
The star of a children’s TV show is always performing

Roxy (Lucy Durack) is a minor celebrity. She’s on a children’s show. She breaks into song at every opportunity. She has an opioid addiction problem. Her father Ron (Roy Billing) represents the universal father in pain when the news about his child becomes known. His story, out of the 100+ unknowing fathers out there, is the one we see.

Other significant characters are Isaac (Charlie Garber), who runs the clinic for Julius now that he’s sick and Carl (Lindsay Farris), one of Edie’s bosses at her law firm.

The underlying themes in Sisters all address ideas of love and family. They explore topics about what makes a family a family, about fatherhood, about motherhood, about sisterhood, and about love the way it really is vs. the way you wish it were. In the first couple of episodes, I thought the characters were a bit too tropey and stereotypical. As the drama became more intense I began to see them as individuals.

The directors include Emma Freeman, Corrie Chen, and Shannon Murphy. Sisters aired in Australia in 2017, and as far as I know it has not been either officially canceled or renewed as of this date.

1 thought on “Review: Sisters”

  1. Pingback: So Many Great Foreign Films and TV in English - Old Ain't Dead

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