The Killing of Sister George

The Killing of Sister George is two hours and 18 minutes long. Usually, I complain about how any movie over 90 minutes is too long. Not here! I loved every scene in The Killing of Sister George. It held my attention for over two hours despite the stakes being small and the visuals being minimal.

The film follows actress June Buckridge, an actress on a soap opera. June plays a beloved character named George. However, while the fictional George is friendly and kind, June is not. Also, June is a lesbian. She lives with a younger woman named Alice who she calls Childie. Alice is foolish and naive and June is generally awful to her. June begins a downward spiral when she begins to worry that her character will be killed off. This worry causes her to get drunk and harass some nuns in a taxi leading to a minor car wreck. This prompts the producers of her show to give Sister George an illness and not use her on the show until her behaviour improves. Of course, June’s behaviour does not improve and George gets written off the show. This sends June into a tailspin.

The Killing of Sister George was based on a play. That explains a lot. Namely, how good the dialogue and characterization are, especially as the three leads are all queer women. It makes a lot more sense that a story with three queer leads would originate on stage rather than as a film. Oversight on films was much greater and as such, movies were less gay friendly and more overtly homophobic. By contrast,The Killing of Sister George is a pretty modern take on lesbians. Neither the main focus nor worst thing about June’s personality is that she’s a lesbian. Sure, she’s a terrible person, but it also never seems like this is the case because she’s a lesbian. She’s a lesbian that happens to be a terrible person. That’s a subtle but important distinction that I am surprised a movie as old as this managed to get right.

The character of June is so great and so terrible. She’s so compulsively watchable all while being such an unlikable character. Finding that balance of depicting an unpleasant character while making it entertaining to watch is a difficult skill that this movie has mastered.

At least part of this is down to Beryl Reid’s performance which is hands down spectacular. Her performance is one of my five favourite performances in a WLW movie ever. Reid is matched in talent by Susannah York who plays Alice and Cora Browne who plays Mrs Croft. These three women give really exceptional performances. Despite the fact that this movie is sad and upsetting, it ended up being sort of a soothing watch for me just because it was so nice to watch everyone be absolutely outstanding at their jobs.

The Killing of Sister George is so good. The fact that it sometimes crosses the line into somewhat campy melodrama just makes it all the more watchable. This is a movie with a great script, great characters and exceptionally good performances. Part of me would love a remake because there are three extremely good female roles in this that I’d love to see current actresses play. The other part of me realizes there’s no reason to do a remake of The Killing of Sister George as there’s so little from the original that it could improve upon so what would even be the point?

Overall rating: 9.1/10

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