In Courtney Paige’s The Sinners (aka The Color Rose), a group of teenage girls attending a Catholic high school are labeled as “The Sins”, each taking on the character traits of their reported dalliances. There’s spoiled Katie who fills the label of greed, jealous Stacy takes on envy, gifted but lazy Robin represents sloth, the (only occasionally) munching Molly is gluttony, quick-to-anger Tori is wrath, the virginal pastor’s daughter Grace has (somehow) earned lust, and the pious Aubrey is pride.
Aubrey is only mildly tolerated by the other Sins. She fills the “pride” slot in their sinful banner, but otherwise, they’re not particularly fond of her. Why she chooses to stay friends with them is the real question; the status they provide is tainted by a context that — as a good, religious girl — you’d think she’d want to avoid. At any rate, when the Sins discover that her journal contains their secrets, they decide to teach her a lesson by scaring her into silence. It’s at this point that things take a sudden turn, and the Sins themselves become both suspects and victims in a series of murders that shake their small town.
The Sinners drew inspiration from teen genre classics like Jawbreakers and Scream (with a vibe and aesthetic that feels right out of The Craft) and thematically dips its carefully painted toe into the dark waters of Se7en. Though the intentions are strong, as a cohesive film, The Sinners falls short of the mark, delivering a muddled mystery without enough motivation to feel truly meaningful.
The Sinners is Canadian-made from a female filmmaker, and as a female Canadian, I was hoping to really love this one. But, although the cinematography (by Stirling Bancroft) is very strong, the script (written by Courtney Paige, Erin Hazlehurst, and Madison Smith) maybe had too many cooks in the kitchen. There are plot holes, too many characters, and a disjointed flow in the latter half of the film that can feel — at times — jarring.
Perhaps my biggest qualm with The Sinners is the motivation for the major plot points. Each action seems like an overreaction, with loose lines drawn from point A to point B. There are subplots that don’t really matter and characters that are largely unnecessary. It’s an earnest effort, but it feels like perhaps there was too much ambition when it could have been pulled back to make a stronger film.
For a group of girls labeled as “The Sins”, it’s not immediately clear why. They may be “mean” girls, but they’re not that sinful. Each of their “sins” seem loosely attached as we rarely see them exhibiting these behaviours (outside of their initial introduction). Did the girls choose which sin represents them, or was that part of a complex, layered alias plan concocted by the other students? If Aubrey is part of the clique because she so well represents pride, then which came first, the friendship or the nickname? I have some questions about the nickname timeline and logistics.
At any rate, that’s not important. I had a lot of questions about The Sinners (such as, why does a Sheriff’s wife have an official police radio to keep in touch with him while on-duty? Is that a thing?), but I think the film is mostly forgivable when keeping its audience in mind. This is a film best seen by brooding teens who want a bit of titillation with their study on the dangers of cliques and community-driven repression.
In a director’s statement, Paige says that she hopes to dive deeper and develop the film as a TV series. Honestly, I think it would have been better served as a series. It would have allowed more character development, broader story arcs, and a more compelling exploration of the murders and the mystery that surrounded them, rather than trying to wrap up a lot of ideas into an hour-and-a-half film.
The bones of The Sinners are strong, but perhaps in trying to put too much meat onto the skeleton, the whole thing was weighed down. Some chunks fell off, the muscle couldn’t support the weight, and as a result, it stumbled. I would love to see this more evenly distributed as a series, and I feel that — in a world of 13 Reasons Why and the Scream series — there would be an audience for that (I assume? I don’t know teen culture).
So that said, I acknowledge that The Sinners is not targeted to me as an audience. Perhaps a younger crowd would find more to love in the film, with relatable themes and characters they can potentially identify with. We haven’t seen an abundance of moody teen-driven genre films lately, so it is nice to see a new offering.
You can catch The Sinners On Demand on February 19th. For more on The Sinners, click here.
