The Greco Sisters have lived a rough life. They were raised in an orphanage and eventually adopted by their caretakers when the orphanage went broke. After their adoptive parents’ death, the three sisters were left with each other, an abusive stepbrother, and the baggage of a marginal life filled with insecurity and exploitation.
Their stepbrother Vinny (Tony Salzano), a crooked and abusive man, is their only form of stability. For his financial provision, they degrade themselves; becoming his sexual pawns and doing his dirty work. But there comes a time when every person reaches their limits. In Greco Sisters, Vicky (Barbara Burke), Tammy (Pamela Lawford) and Malory (Jossie Palmares) Greco have had enough.
When Vinny hatches a scheme to cut his crew out of his latest business deal, he decides to send his sisters to pick up his money and seize the entire take for himself. But once his sisters pick up the cash, they decide that they’ll bury it and tell their brother that they lost it. When Vinny hears about this, he and his girlfriend Cindy (Paulina Brahm) decide to teach the girls a painful lesson.
The first point that should be made is that Greco Sisters was produced as a trailer for a full length feature. So Rye Joesph’s task is to get his audience interested in the concept and explain it coherently and in a compelling way in a very short length of time. I came away from his attempt with a clear understanding of its basic story line. With that said, the trailer provides divergent pieces of information that could be used to take the full length story in several different directions. From what I’ve viewed here, the most likely direction seems to be focusing on the Sisters’ struggles with Vinny and survival in general. If that’s not the intended direction for the feature, more focus needs to be developed in the short/trailer.
Largely the dialogue is plausible. The majority of the content is wrapped up in fight sequences that are filled with heated arguments. There was one line of dialogue that I felt was oddly worded though. Near the beginning of the film, Malory’s boyfriend, Evan (Danny Boushebel), makes a comment about her “not liking sex.” I can appreciate that this is related to her relationship with her brother, but it feels very out of place at this point in the narrative. My suggestion is to retain the current lead-in to asking about what Malory’s brother does for a living, but rephrase the part about Malory not liking sex to get the point across another way….through different dialogue or through visual information.
Overall, I think this concept has great potential. There are a ton of social issues that can be explored in a piece like this: brokenness in the adoption system, conditioned abuse and neglect, general decay and dysfunction, etc. I think the story can be quite compelling.
Finally, the actors fit the film well. Their rough style and mannerisms are very believable and they execute the scenes well. With some more polish, this cast could make a very credible feature.
First of all, kudos to the crew for making a film with good production value in a day! Greco Sisters was filmed in one eleven-hour day with an additional one hour reshoot. Given the parameters, there is a lot to be proud of here.
Although a lot of the camerawork was shaky and the lighting was hit or miss, in the end, the overall “rough around the edges” look worked. Some of the more jarring pieces of camerawork and lighting actually helped convey the mood of the piece and the uneasiness of the world that the characters live in. Shot composition was generally good and the visual content was compelling.
I was rather impressed with the makeup used in the film, which was created by makeup artist Justin Zimmerman. The blood used in the fight sequences looked real. The abrasions, cuts and bruises also looked believable. Nice job, Mr. Zimmerman.
