DEAD RINGERS
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1988 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: David Cronenberg's latest is an adaptation of the novel TWINS by Wood and Geasland with Jeremy Irons playing twin brothers. The acting and the technical work are good but the storyline is slow, muddled, confusing, and self-contradictory. Rating: 0.
Every two or three films David Cronenberg takes another few steps up the ladder of recognition. His STEREO and CRIMES OF THE FUTURE are experiments that went wrong. I did not find them worth watching. Then came SHIVERS (a.k.a. THE PARASITE MURDERS, a.k.a. THEY CAME FROM WITHIN), RABID, AND THE BROOD. These are diverting for horror film buffs, but not actually good films. SCANNERS and VIDEODROME were actually good and earned him a respectable following in his own genre. With THE DEAD ZONE, THE FLY, and DEAD RINGERS, he is building respect from general audiences. In fact, until very near the end DEAD RINGERS is not really a horror film at all. It is something else; perhaps "surreal" comes the closest to describing it. In other ways it is unlike other Cronenberg. Of all Cronenberg's major films only THE DEAD ZONE has less blood and less observable deformity. Note that the deformity does not fit into the plot, but seems sort of plastered on and, unlike in most Cronenberg films, is limited solely to dialogue and some absurd renderings of medical instruments. One wonders if the mutation plot was even in the source of the story (TWINS by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland).
The story is about identical twin gynecologists (Beverly Mantle (played by Jeremy Irons) and his brother Elliot (played by Jeremy Irons). These twins are so identical that even people who know them well cannot tell them apart (partially due to the fact they they even have facial marks in the same places). (Of the two actors, Irons is probably the more charismatic and often shamelessly steals scenes from Irons. From childhood Beverly and Elliot have shared interests, classes, experiences, even lovers. They imitate each other so well that they can hand lovers back and forth without the lovers suspecting. Then a new lover comes along, Film star Clare Niveau (played by Genevieve Bujold) who discovers she has been handed off. She chooses one of the twins over the other and that asymmetry opens a Pandora's box in the brothers' relationship.
DEAD RINGERS is a spotty affair that sometimes makes sense and sometimes does not. Irons does as good a job of split-screen acting as has ever been done. And makes no mistake, that is difficult acting. Nobody nominated for an acting Oscar this year will have worked harder than Irons, yet the chances are virtually non-existent that Irons will get industry recognition for his part in DEAD RINGERS. But the plot of the film is plodding and ponderous. Some things that happen are never very well explained. In some scenes it is unclear which brother we are seeing. The final scene of the film is flatly impossible given what has led up to it. Because of the flaws, this gets a low 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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