'Sister': A terrific, sad movie about childhood lived on the edge

'Sister' looks inside the gumption and desperation of a 12-year old thief and his sister.

By Peter Rainer, Film critic / October 5, 2012  

“Sister” (“L’enfant d’en haut ”), directed and co-written by Ursula Meier, follows Simon’s conniving, unnerving attempts to get ahead. Ferrety and quicksilver, he always has an eye to the main chance. It’s one of the many excellences of this film that Meier doesn’t sentimentalize this boy or convert him into some working-class antihero.

Simon’s chief occupation – profession, really – is stealing from the rich skiers whose bags of unguarded equipment are ripe for the picking. Having secured a ski-lift pass, even though he doesn’t ski, Simon rifles through the piles and helps himself to food, gloves, goggles, and skis, which he then sells in the valley as “clearance” items. (Few buyers believe him.) Louise, still in her 20s, perpetually walking out on jobs and men, contributes little to the arrangement. Simon supports them with his stealing, but one gets the feeling he would steal anyway – for the thrill and the sense of entitlement. When one of the seasonal workers at the resort (Martin Compston) catches him in a storage room and withholds the booty from the boy, Simon snaps back, “Give me my money for the skis.” He justifies his thefts by saying that the resort-goers “are so rich they don’t care and they’ll just buy a new one.”