The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)

[warren oates]

Has warren oates broken the record yet for Most Posts in a Thread for a Film You Didn't Like?

By which I take it to mean you guys think I'm not adding to the discussion anymore and should just bow out?

[mfunk9786]

You seem to be doing a very dignified and thought-out job of asking "why?" and "what's the point?" about every aspect of the film, I don't really know how much posting from people who have already cracked into their interpretations of the answers of those questions it may take until you feel comfortable with easing up on asking those questions with such frequency. In other words: probably yes, but it isn't like you're trolling or anything.

[warren oates]

I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me, mfunk. Or at least I'll decide to take it that way.

I'm still hungry to discuss The Master. It's not about liking the film or not or about being right or wrong. I really would like to understand how the film is working for those who feel like it does work for them. And I just don't know anybody personally who enjoyed the film as much as supporters on the board and I obviously don't think it's uninteresting in spite of the fact that I'm disappointed in it. Like I wrote to you earlier, the case for a more interior poetic reading of the film hasn't been made better than in your initial big post. But I do feel like a lot of other commenters want/need the film to be and to do lots of other stuff I'm not sure its doing.

[mfunk9786]

It sounds like the answers you want are really only going to come to you (or not come to you, but really, they are there) from a repeat viewing or two of the movie.

[Foam]

I'm still getting a lot out of warren's posts so...

[pzadvance]

Maybe the film was damned from the script phase; I don't know. But if Anderson entered production without having a clue what he wanted to say, then he knew he was taking a risk of failure.

I really take issue with modern critics wielding their "inside knowledge" of a film's allegedly troubled production as some sort of infallible weapon against the work. Coppola's admission that he wandered in search of an ending for Apocalypse Now has given dozens free reign to criticize that aspect of the film to an unnecessary degree. Several directors will admit that the true meaning and intention of a film isn't revealed to them until it's been completed, or until they're forced to repeatedly describe and dissect on a press tour or the like. Anderson admitted that he may have begun without a clear idea of what he was after, but it didn't continue that way. (Washington Post):

“It was scary to begin with,” he says, describing the process of writing and filming “The Master.” “It was sort of like, what exactly are we in search of here, getting these two guys together? We kind of knew that we were in pursuit of something that we couldn’t quite put our finger on, but I think we knew it when we got it.”

I think it would be a significant error to mistake a man's attempt at humility in an interview or his reluctance to issue concrete explanations as an indication that his film was nothing more than a wild mess of impromptu invention and scrambling for meaning.

Like Cold Bishop, I'm wary of anybody (in life as well as in film) who claims to have drawn absolute conclusions about a controversial or inherently ambiguous issue. The Master fully succeeds on the terms I believe it set for itself--it presents two complex, opposing forces in a specific context to yield discussion, and the livelihood and depth of the talks in this thread alone are, I believe, a testament to that. To that effect--warren oates, I would urge you not to remove yourself from the conversation as I've found all of this back-and-forth from both camps hugely engaging and thought-provoking.

[matrixschmatrix]

With respect to what Warren's saying fails to show development in Freddie:

Spoiler

Obviously, the situations aren't exactly the same. On the one hand, they are parallel- Freddie is a violent man, and his reactions to things are irrepresibly violent. There are some key differences, though.

The first assault works in two ways- first, Freddie hucks fruit (I think?) at the man, a childish, bullying reaction against the smartass who's standing up for himself. Dodd chastises him for this, but evidently Freddie interprets this as a reaction to the way Freddie's violence manifested, rather than the violence itself- and I think he also sees Dodd's slipped 'pig fuck' as a sign that Dodd has a lust for that violence which he can bareley repress. As such, Freddie organizes a small goon squad and invades the dissident's home- violence in a way that doesn't disturb the outer facade of the organization (and which is not unfamiliar to people who follow the doings of Scientology in real life.)

The violence against the man who objects that Dodd's book ought to have been a pamphlet is different for a couple of reasons- a major one being simply that the man is a really vital insider, rather than a skeptical outsider. That Freddie can attack him without repercussion is a signifier of how central Freddie has become, and how much his violence is influencing the progression of the cult- perhaps before, Dodd was capable of accepting critical feedback, but with an attack dog like Freddie on the loose, he'll never even hear it. And it is paralleled to Dodd's own increasingly deaf ears, when he dismisses the concerns of the True Believer woman about the distinction between imagination and memory- he and Freddie may not have the same outward reaction, but their mirrored selves are clear, once again.

And yes, Freddie himself has changed, because he's an insider now, and will be to greater or lesser degree until the very end of the movie. Even as a Navy man Freddie was something of an outsider, or so we're led to gather- his actions were counter to or outside the needs of the group, rather than defining it as they now do. So yes, there's a similarity in that Freddie's snapping, snarling response to things is largely unchanged, but the context for it is different, and Freddie seems to feel differently about it- to me, there's a greater sense that he's hearing and understanding the things the man says, and that this is as much as anything the cause for the attack.

[Grand Illusion]

calling something like the progression from the fairly straightforward psychology/hypnotism session of the 'What is your name?" sequence to the outright deconstructive psychological warfare of the wall touching thing repetition

Considering the two main characters react almost identically to both processes, the fact that one is "outright deconstructive psychological warfare" is rather inconsequential. Also, this supposed deconstructive psychological warfare not only seems to leave the characters unaffected, but it does very little to either progress or hinder their goals/dreams/objective.

Frankly, the film doesn't give us proof of your claim of psychological deconstruction. Freddie just cries, says he feels better, and hugs Dodd. Same reaction pretty much both times.

In fact, I'd say the most psychologically destructive session might be the one where Freddie is required to be degraded, face-to-face, without reacting. By being the most personal, intimate, and repressing, that is potentially the most damaging/mind-controlling. But I believe that incident takes place in between the first Processing and the Window/Wall stunt.

So if the most significant scene happens in the middle of two other events, that's poor pacing and poor progression. The events should build upwards, with each session getting progressively more damaging. The non-progression and the characters' similar reactions both make the Window/Wall scene seem more useless, both to the audience and the characters. This, along with its length, adds to the repetition.

Anderson's been making movies without knowing exactly what they were going to be or what they were about since at least Magnolia, and it's a known quality in his work at this point.

And that's fine. Many great auteurs do it. But it's riskier than actually knowing what you want to get before entering principle photography. That method of working assumes he'll stumble upon something in the process of making the film. He takes big risks, and was bound to fall down eventually.

It sounds like the answers you want are really only going to come to you (or not come to you, but really, they are there) from a repeat viewing or two of the movie.

Spoken like a True Believer. In the world of cinema, this is an important film from an important filmmaker. Even if this was being universally panned from critics and forum-goers alike, it'd still be worth having a discussion about.

Should the thread really devolve into just how awesome PTA is? I mean, we already had that when you started this thread over a year ago.

I really take issue with modern critics wielding their "inside knowledge" of a film's allegedly troubled production as some sort of infallible weapon against the work.

I wouldn't say it's an infallible weapon at all. If you reread what you quoted from me, I said that the whole project might have been damned from the script phase. It might entirely be a failure based on its conception, rather than its process. I don't know.

It's worth exploring the process though. It's not like the criticisms of this are all over the place. The dissenters have often cited a lack of a point of view, lack of cohesion, repetition, and stagnancy of the film. When dissecting a film (any film) that allegedly has these problems, it's worth looking at a process where the director walked onto set without knowing what he wanted to say.

To that effect--warren oates, I would urge you not to remove yourself from the conversation as I've found all of this back-and-forth from both camps hugely engaging and thought-provoking.

Word.

[mfunk9786]

The connection between the first line of dialogue in the film and Freddie's last name (Quell, the shampoo used for those unfortunate folks infested with crabs) just dawned on me. Oh, PTA. Between this and 'Plainview,' you do not mind naming your characters in an incredibly on-the-nose fashion.

[Aspect]

PTA's had the character "Quell" in his head for over ten years according to interviews. If anything, I just thought it was perhaps being used ironically, as in there's no way anyone, even Dodd, can quell (pacify) the animalistic storm that is Freddie. Maybe he thought of the shampoo during the writing and added that bit as a joke. After all, the shampoo would be less dangerous than what he advises!

Regardless, I don't understand why people take offense to this movie being flawed in any way. And it most certainly is for a lot of us. That doesn't mean we didn't enjoy it while we were watching it, only that our intellects were not as engaged as we thought they were going to be. As Roger Ebert put it, "Paul Thomas Anderson's 'The Master' is fabulously well-acted and crafted, but when I reach for it, my hand closes on air...'The Master' shows invention and curiosity. It is often spellbinding. But what does it intend to communicate?" I don't think these are unfair questions to ask, especially when so many of us are asking them. We're not inventing them out of some grudge against PTA or PTA fans. As Warren mentioned earlier, we are PTA fans!

Additionally, the charge that we need to see the movie again is condescending and rude. Some of us have really good memories, seriously! Aside from some admittedly imaginative hypotheticals arrived at by previous posters, nobody is really answering the questions we are asking about the film, especially regarding specific character motivations that would have crafted compelling and suspenseful cinema. We all kind of watched this movie in a passive daze, feeling outside of the characters because we were never let in, and this particular story about the need for purpose in one's life (the need for a master) would have been better suited by a more transparent approach, as opposed to the opaque and half-baked puzzle we got.

To the fanboys who see this movie as flawless and take offense to any well-articulated and specific criticisms, I ask why? And no, you can't say that the film is perfect and that the answers are all there, because they're patently not. Here's an idea: PTA is not more sophisticated than you. Perhaps you are more sophisticated than he is. This is not a crime. He's not a perfect writer, so let's engage with his craft and criticize it. There's no harm in that! Unless it's the desecration of your cinematic god, in which case I would suggest growing up and learning how to properly engage with art, which by its very nature has pros and cons within it. This is the kind of movie that many of us love discussing because we alternately enjoyed it and were frustrated by it. So let's have a real discussion about it. Even those who loved the film must have had some issues with it that multiple viewings will not clear up. I can all but guarantee that you weren't as immersed in the film as you hoped you'd be. Why? Put on your thinking caps and try and figure out what this movie could have done better. If anything, we all learn and grow as film watchers from these kinds of discussions.

[mfunk9786]

The name was not Quell until the last rewrite, it used to be Sutton

[pzadvance]

Before addressing most of your more actual questions, Aspect, I think it bears pointing out that in spite of your insistence that the "rewatch charge" is condescending, you then proved utterly condescending yourself in your suggestion that any/everyone who found the movie wholly engaging and moving must surely have been lying to themselves or being dishonest about their true level of enjoyment. The suggestion that a rewatch might, as it has for some of us, allow the film to reveal more aspects of its complexity (a largely inarguable truth about most thought-provoking works) is far less insulting than your insinuation that those who like the film are just blind fanboys incapable of critical reflection.

[matrixschmatrix]

I'm just a little confused because I've been wearing my uh 'thinking cap' this whole time and like... saying things... about the movie. I don't know what kind of 'answering questions' you expect to see beyond 'hypotheticals' since literally any subjective interpretation is going to be based in hypotheticals and what one read into a work.

[mfunk9786]

As for the accusation of some grand insult being lobbied at you re: seeing the film again, fuck, I had to see it again in order to latch onto its rhythms and deeper themes. And I have never seen a Paul Thomas Anderson film I haven't liked. I am not implying when I say that that there was some memory or comprehension issue on the part of the person who disliked the film, but there's a reason why many of the people who loved it recommend a repeat viewing, and it's not some condescension, otherwise those who defend any film would use that as their retort to negative criticism. The 'hand closes on air' criticism is one that I wrestled with the first time I saw it, but having given it more of my time, I no longer have. Now, you can just say 'fuck it' and not see the film again, but don't act insulted at the suggestion that you may have a richer experience the second (and third) time around.

[matrixschmatrix]

I honestly don't think of myself as a PTA diehard, since I didn't even bother to see There Will be Blood in the theater (though I regret it now) but this movie struck me very strongly.

It may have helped that I have a reasonable familiarity with Scientology (and went with a friend who was raised as one, and feels that his family life was more or less ruined by them) but even without being able to articulate the substance of the film I felt clear that it had one- fully as much as I did with There Will be Blood.

[zedz]

Has warren oates broken the record yet for Most Posts in a Thread for a Film You Didn't Like?

Well, if you include within that rubric "Films You Didn't Like And Haven't Seen", I'm sure Nothing would have beaten him hands down at some point.

[wigwam]

if the most significant scene happens in the middle of two other events, that's poor pacing and poor progression.

ive only seen it once (so far, and am a PTA diehard) but as i recall,

Spoiler

the button-flattening rundown (i wanna fart in your face) occurs simultaneously w/ the upper-thetan audits (window/wall, turn my eyes black) and all in montage and aren't about freddie and any attempt at character arc or progress, they're depicting the cult's processes escalating from the psychiatric/hypnosis-ish earlier processes w/ the time-track work

as a true believer i appreciate oates and others' opinions, as it is solidifies my appreciation for just how much i enjoyed this film functioning in such an atypical and instinctual way as to eschew "normal" pacing/progression (in terms of the quote)

[The Narrator Returns]

One more teaser, made up mostly of deleted material.

[Guido]

I don't think I've ever seen a marketing campaign that so mysteriously expands the world of the film it's attempting to sell. All of these extraneous scenes and images adrift in the teasers really do seem to narratively complement the finished film.

[Tom Hagen]

Finally saw this and have now caught up to a lot of the discussion here. My initial reaction, as seems to be the case for many of you, is that I need to see this again to parse out what has happened, and to clarify my own feelings about it. I'm too exhausted to head back in now, but I suspect it may be more rewarding on future home viewings. My sense is that this is one of those auteur films in the proud tradition of the 60s European art house where the ambiguities are purposely baked into the cake, and that there's no real key mystery lurking for patient viewers to unlock. Contrary to some of what has been said here so far, the central enigma of the film for me is

Spoiler

Dodd's unwavering and seemingly very real interest in Freddie. The best contextual evidence that we have of Dodd is that he's charlatan and grifter (he can't defend his system against challenges from external skeptics or even internal partisans; he's civilly arrested for misappropriation of the New York money; his own son acknowledges his fraudulence; his former editor observes the garbled and incomprehensible nature of his writing; etc.). It may be my own skepticism bleeding through, but I didn't get the sense that Dodd personally believed what he was selling, except for perhaps a few curious passages here and there, such as his paranoid treatment of his unpublished writings. I've enjoyed reading a lot of the theories some of you have espoused -- and I'm largely on-board with the control dynamic interpretation -- but I still don't fully understand what Dodd gets out of the relationship with a Freddie, a guy who is hardly a mark for money or influence, and who is a liability as a foot soldier due to his substance abuse, mental illness, and complete lack of self control. There's a lot of psychosexual subtext in everything that transpires in the film, but I don't see that much of it relates to a homosexual interest between the two men.

Overall, I probably put it in the back half of Anderson's body of work, and along with Punch Drunk Love is probably his only film that didn't immediately click with me as some kind of immediate classic.

[Black Hat]

My thought upon reading through this thread is that I don't agree that one has to see it again, altho I will but, I do believe a certain amount of distance both from the film itself and all of the hype/noise surrounding it is required to really place it in a proper context.

My first impression on the film itself, having seen it last night, is that I didn't see Freddy as the head or focus of the film. To me the head and focus of The Master was two fold, one on The Master as defined by Paul Thomas Anderson and the second The Master as defined by the Lancaster Dodds of the world. Freddy to me, like Anderson's clear view of most people on earth, was a pawn, a conduit required to push the core of the film forward. The Master or more broadly the masters.

On the matter of why choose a cult setting to tell this story, I'm of the mind to look at The Cause as a wider metaphor for the world's structure. I would further argue that cults, or moreover the arms of leaders, are a place that many escape from the world, a person they look to for comfort, that they are escaping masters. Or so they'd like to believe. A place where they feel they are accepted for who they are until of course they deviate from the talking points in which case they are tossed out never to be heard from again.

In the cult leader, we see an examination of a master, intelligent people who thru their charismatic, shrewd calculating ways climb to the top of almost all groups, cult or not. What the film showed was first exposing masters, cult like leaders for what they really are beyond all the charisma and second that peace is not attainable without accepting a subservient role. Most people can change and at some point accept it, others, like Freddy, can never change.

Spoiler

Dodd's closing lines to Freddy on being the first person in history without a master, to me encapsulated the whole theme of the movie

On the 'pointless' scene

Spoiler

I saw the magic there, or the point, in how it was shot. Regardless of how one felt about the movie, it's hard for me to see how that seen was pointless, given the sheer tension of it. As they went in opposite directions among other things, I saw it as Freddy finally outrunning the limitations Dodd and the group placed on his nature. Where as Dodd's bike ride I saw as a man consumed with his own ego, knowing exactly where he's going and nothing would get in his way, not even his own recklessness.

On the criticism that Freddy had to change or at least change his tactics. First, why must this happen? Second, his tactics were not up to him, Dodd & The Cause were in charge of them and in that I think it further exposed its flaws, especially in further contextualizing Freddy that culminated at the end of the film. Third, wouldn't the fact that a person like Freddy allowed himself to accept, 'the help' of others, regardless of how we might feel about it, be indicative of him changing his tactics?

My main issue with the film

Spoiler

The Freddy/Doris plotline/flashback scenes. This felt incredibly flat to me, almost as if PTA was told to include something Notebookesque to make it more palatable to a wider audience. When you're attempting to address some pretty high handed questions about the human condition, why would you then cloud it or reduce it by interjecting that Freddy is yet another male reaction to a lost love? It was just so unnecessary and I cringe at the fact that I know there are many people out there who will walk away from this movie, missing the whole point, or worse saying there was none, wishing there was more about Freddy and Doris as opposed to that creepy singing fat guy. Just awful.

[Black Hat]

To that effect--warren oates, I would urge you not to remove yourself from the conversation as I've found all of this back-and-forth from both camps hugely engaging and thought-provoking.

Indeed.

[pzadvance]

Big post time.

The overall sense that I get, reading from both the supporters and opposers, is that many of the people who responded positively to this film were more comfortable filling in perceived leaps in plot and character development with their own theories and interpretations (that seem to be supported by the fabric of the film), whereas the detractors are largely critical of the film for not directly addressing these issues in the text. Quite honestly, I see the merit in both perspectives. I did quite like dissecting this film and finding my own way through the narrative, drawing connecting lines that are hardly explicit onscreen. I found value in applying my passing knowledge of Scientology's history to interpret certain scenes as insinuations of what would come to pass in the movement (i.e. Freddie's thuggish behavior towards dissenters representing the allegedly violent suppression tactics of the church today).

That said, I didn't know if I could say with confidence that this aspect of the film makes it better or more engaging than it could have been with more clearly drawn arcs and filled out threads. I find that a lot of the criticisms I've read hold water, even though I'd place myself firmly in the camp of those who adore this film. To that end, I decided to look at the script to see if things had changed significantly in the translation from page to screen. I guess I'll post my thoughts at the outset before breaking down what I saw to be the most interesting alterations.

My draft was not dated. Freddie is still referred to as "Freddie Sutton" but aside from the changes detailed below much of the film is very very similar to what we have in theaters now. My initial reaction is that many of the interpretations I had and that many others have expressed in this forum are definitely supported by this draft. There weren't any moments that shocked me or threw my reading of the film out of whack. But a great many things that critics found to be lacking are clarified in this draft--Freddie's arc, what he gains from The Cause, just how impacted he is by their methods--and I felt no betrayal from having these more plainly elucidated. It did not feel like a different film, but it did feel like a somewhat fuller one. I must admit that I find myself wishing that many of these scenes had been left in--and frankly, a bit puzzled as to why they weren't. Was there a deliberate move to decrease comprehension? To allow for more ambiguity? This may have been the case, but I'm unclear if the final result allows for the kind of stimulating ambiguities such a decision might have hoped to produce. What, for example, is gained by having a less clear idea of the degree to which Freddie's been effected by the movement? I'm not sure I have an adequate answer for that right now.

At any rate, on to the spoilers:

Spoiler

- The monologue after Master's public dressing-down, with Amy Adams ranting ("So this is where we are? To have to explain ourselves? For what?") and Master furiously typing away, originally belonged to Dodd. Mary Sue was merely present in the room at the time.

- Freddie and Clark share some moments before/after the beating of John More, where Clark illuminates the nature of The Split Saber. Basically, in an army hospital in '41, Dodd allegedly died for 7 minutes, then came back and in "a storm of vision and creative output" wrote down his experiences. Whoever read this work either "went insane or committed suicide." The insinuation is basically that the book contains some truth about "life on this planet" that was deemed too dangerous for the world to know, hence it being locked away in the desert until the time was right. Freddie also inquires about the worth of this object, justifying Clark's later suggestion that he might be a spy (although, interestingly, that scene never comes up in the script--there is less of a sense that the higher-ups are concerned that Freddie might be dangerous to the Cause. He is more accepted and trusted in this draft).

- The jerking off scene ("You stop this idea... It didn't work for them and it's not gonna work for you") succeeds a scene in which Dodd proposes to his followers that there is value in polygamy, even referencing Joseph Smith and the Mormons ("something Joseph Smith had right"). This clarifies her lines a bit more.

- Val, Dodd's son, has much more of a presence. There is a subplot where Mary Sue and Dodd get Freddie to spy on Val for them to see if he's betraying the Cause. After Val tells the cops that Dodd is inside Helen Sullivan's house, he flees from the Cause, leaving a sign in lipstick on Freddie's mirror: YOU'LL NEVER GET BETTER. The next time he's seen is when Freddie comes to England and he greets him there.

- There's an extended sequence in which Freddie's given a highly sensitive mission under the stipulation that he cease his drinking (in the script, he agrees to this and we see him undergo the first stages of detox: sweating, vomiting, etc.). He is sent to Phoenix to retrieve a mysterious box of some import hidden under Dodd's old house. When Freddie arrives, he finds the house ransacked but the box is exactly where he was told it would be. He does not open the box but imagines what might happen if he does (the shot in the most recent teaser of him opening a box and flames bursting out is from this sequence). He prepares followers in Phoenix for Dodd's arrival and is shown doing more work to aid the Cause.

- A character who I believe is played by Kevin J. O'Connor in the film gets ex-communicated from The Cause because of his apparent collusion with Val. It leads to a great, pointed exchange where he tries to return but Freddie prevents him, and the character spouts this not-unfamiliar sounding attack against the cult: "This is just mental cruelty to invent all these new ideas and never follow though on it and just keep adding and subtracting and I gotta pay for this and that level and more and more... and Book II's coming. All the answers...'if you had that, it's no good cause here's the new thing...and oh no... you don't need that, that's old... this is new.'" This scene precedes Dodd's "great revelation" at the release party for Book II and very clearly functions as a spectre of doubt which hangs over Dodd's entire bullshitty speech. We get the distinct sense that Freddie has become disenchanted with the Cause (he fantasizes about using a saber to slice off Dodd's head), and this leads right up to the pivotal desert scene...

- There is never any flashback to Doris, we don't see her at all in the script, yet the scene of him returning to her mother plays out almost verbatim as it does in the film.

- After the dream in the theater, Freddie falls from the balcony and is taken to the hospital by a theater attendant who just happens to be a stripper from earlier in the film (Freddie had suggested she look into The Cause at the time, she evidently did and had her life changed irrevocably and sees Freddie as a savior). We also see him (very unncessarily, IMHO) call the Phoenix Cause office and learn that they actually have moved to England, like Dodd said in his dream.

- There's a pretty strange subplot of Freddie getting increasingly more and more tattoos (he explains the reason for a pig and rooster tattoo thusly: "They keep you from drowning... keep the sea from swallowing you... pig and rooster always survive a shipwreck."

So there's that.

One last bit of interpretation I've yet to see here but I found interesting (credit where credit is due, this one's coming from my boss's wife): along the lines of what I discussed earlier (applying a basic knowledge of Scientology to enhance your interpretation of a scene), Dodd's serenade to Freddie at the end could be read as him taunting Freddie, using knowledge that was gleaned in processing sessions (Freddie left his love behind by taking "a slow boat to China") to twist the knife, as it were, or serve as a reminder that he possesses intimate knowledge that he might be willing to one day wield against him. I had yet to even make the "boat to China" connection so this interpretation was getting my juices pumping again, eager to dive back in and see what else I might have missed.

[wigwam]

is the flashback to Doris or Doris's sister who sent him a letter?

most of those script items seem like much weaker choices that were destined to get weaned (similar to early drafts of Magnolia)

i like in the finished film that Freddie never actively seeks to get better, he stumbles into Dodd's orbit and finally gets work he is suited for and his only pursuit of The Cause's tech is motivated by further hedonism

your wife's theory is pretty great!

[pzadvance]

is the flashback to Doris or Doris's sister who sent him a letter?

Not sure I follow? In the film, the flashback is to Doris and happens right after Dodd tells Freddie he can close his eyes during the processing session--this sequence where we see the two of them together isn't in the draft I read and we in fact never see her in any other scene of the script either. I don't recall a mention of her having a sister in either the film or the script.