Two Sisters, Both Singers, Clash In Seattle Rock World

Movie review

XXX 1/2 "Georgia," with Jennifer Jason Leigh, Mare Winningham, Max Perlich, John Doe, Ted Levine, John C. Reilly. Directed by Ulu Grosbard, from a script by Barbara Turner. Broadway Market Cinemas. "R" - Restricted because of rough language, sex scene.

A raw, emotion-driven study of two singing sisters - one content and talented, the other compelled to push her sour voice over the edge - "Georgia" suggests a John Cassavetes psychodrama set in the Seattle rock world.

Its central character, Sadie, is a woman under the influence of several drugs ("whatever's cheap and free") who has spent her personal and professional life in the shadow of her successful sister, Georgia.

Everything appears to come easily to the happily married Georgia, who claims she never cared about the folk-rock career that almost happened while she wasn't looking.

Leaving a trail of fed-up ex-boyfriends, Sadie has to fight for her bit of turf as a Janis Joplin wannabe. She has every reason to be jealous. Nevertheless, she refers to Georgia as "the only person I'll miss when I leave this Earth."

The compliment doesn't impress Georgia, who tries to stay on good terms with Sadie but can't take their emotionally draining reunions, during which Sadie usually says something upsetting like "I'm bolder than you."

"She swallows people up," says Georgia, exasperated with her husband's indulgent attitude toward her sister. "How can you not see

that?"

This tragi-comic, unresolvable relationship is brilliantly played out by Jennifer Jason Leigh as the gloriously neurotic Sadie and Mare Winningham as the almost blandly stable Georgia. What could have been a relentlessly downbeat portrait of a self-destructive personality achieves a precarious balance: It's as compelling as it is appalling.

Under the perceptive direction of Ulu Grosbard ("Straight Time"), both actresses locate enough variety, humor and gutsiness in these characters to keep us interested for the movie's two-hour running time. The thoughtful script by Barbara Turner (Leigh's mother) makes certain that Georgia is neither a pushover nor a saint, while Sadie's misguided passion and ambition can be genuinely moving.

By the time Grosbard hands the movie over to Leigh for an eight-minute-long, all-stops-out, not-very-good performance of Van Morrison's "Take Me Back," you're ready to surrender all artistic judgment of the moment. Whatever her shortcomings, Sadie has created something rather astonishing.

The supporting cast is also full of good people doing their best. Max Perlich is touchingly vulnerable as Sadie's adoring new husband, who claims that "she makes me real." John Doe easily fills the role of an ex-boyfriend who allows her back into his band while making it clear that he doesn't want her back in his life. Ted Levine does wonders with the small role of Georgia's husband, and John C. Reilly is excellent as a substance-abusing drummer who doesn't have Sadie's resilience.

"We're not 23 anymore," says Doe's worried band leader, who can no longer indulge unprofessional behavior. "A drummer's gotta show up."

Even though it's set in the relatively fresh world of Seattle rock, "Georgia" is a movie about aging and compromise. Defiant, immature and talentless to the last, Sadie is as much its heroine as she is its villain.