The Lemon Sisters

There's a word for movies like this. The word is painful. Of recent films, only ISHTAR engendered the kind of accusations of big-star self-indulgence that greeted THE LEMON SISTERS, which brings a condescending, heavy-handed cuteness to its portrayal of three amateur musicians of negligible talent. Although many critics found similar fault with ISHTAR, at least Elaine May's film had a plot. THE LEMON SISTERS doesn't. Instead it cuts back and forth between half-baked, vaguely related vignettes set in the present and jury-rigged flashbacks tacked on to give the other scenes some illusory semblance of order and logic. Like the film in general, this structure is an exe...