September Says review – a modern gothic take on teenage siblings

Ellen E Jones

Feb. 23, 2025, 11 a.m.

Adapting Daisy Johnson’s psychological thriller Sisters, French actor Ariane Labed’s directorial debut feels emotionally distant yet strangely familiar…

Ariane Labed, the French-Greek actor most famous for roles in The Souvenir and Assassin’s Creed, has made her directorial debut and chosen the 2020 novel Sisters, by British author Daisy Johnson, as her inspiration. It’s a tale of too-close teenage sisters – the domineering September (Pascale Kann) and the submissive July (Mia Tharia) – who experience playground bullying and a disturbing sexual awakening, in parallel to their mother’s (Rakhee Thakrar) own demonstrations of sexual liberation. Carrie by way of Dogtooth, then? The fact that Labed is married to Yorgos Lanthimos, the Oscar-nominated director of Poor Things and, before that, Dogtooth, makes the comparison difficult to avoid.

Whatever the specific influences, though, this is modern gothic, with natural lighting, neatly composed wide shots and the near total absence of a musical score. These directorial choices also act to keep the sisters at an emotional distance, as if the camera were another classmate wary – or weary? – of their kooky unpredictability. Would that the plot twist was equally unpredictable.

In UK and Irish cinemas