The Skeleton Twins, the winner of the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at this year's Sundance Film Festival, wants you to think it's a profound portrait of estranged twin siblings dealing with their demons.
Nice try. This painfully contrived drama with comic flourishes reduces some off-putting characters with mommy issues to pawns at the mercy of the movie's mechanical chess board of a plot, though come to think it, that's being insulting to board games. No offense intended.
Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig.
The film starts in twee indie mode, as perpetually depressed Milo (Bill Hader) and his twin sister Maggie (fellow Saturday Night Live alum Kristen Wiig) are contemplating suicide. At the same time. Even though they're thousands of miles apart and haven't talked to each other in a decade. Because of that psychic bond twins have, and it's so cute that they're both self-hatin' basket cases and want to off themselves simultaneously. Please tell this movie it's oh so clever, and don't you think it's darling they cast two actors known for their comedic chops in serious roles but not so serious 'cause we need to package this as a comedy?
Kristen Wiig, Luke Wilson.
Milo's bid for attention in the guise of a suicide attempt lands him in the hospital. Milo's gay, you see, and he's got big-time baggage the film's going to get to in a sec, but first things first, cause we gotta establish how distant he's become from twin sis Maggie, who flies out to Cali and asks him to move in with her and her cute hubby Lance (Luke Wilson) back east. Because family needs to stick together even if they can't stand each other.
Milo, a bundle of faintly effeminate affectations in search of a character, reluctantly comes home with Maggie. It's not a happy homecoming, though, cause he wanted to come back from as a famous Hollywood star and tell all those jerky jerks who picked on him, “I'm so much better than you little people.” But at least there's golly-gee, clean-cut Lance, a floppy-eared puppy of a husband who gives Maggie stability, even though it's clear to Milo – and discerning viewers – he long ago stopped doing it for her down below, even though, as Lance blurts out, “We're trying to get pregnant.”
To mix things up, Maggie's taking scuba classes, and there's something about Billy (Boyd Holbrook), her instructor, that makes her feel all bubbly, and no, it's not the oxygen tank. Could it be the Aussie accent? The alpha-male swagger? Whatevs it is, it's really working for her, enough to want to throw caution to the wind, cause despite the white picket fence she feels neglected and that makes her sooooo horny.
Bill Hader, Ty Burrell.
Meanwhile, Milo seeks out Rich (Ty Burrell), a closeted bookseller with whom he has a history. This story strand actually had the potential to take The Skeleton Twins in an intriguing direction, especially when more details about these characters' relationship come to light. Nothing doing.
Director Craig Johnson, working on a screenplay he co-wrote with Mark Heyman, just absorbs the storyline into their loud, churning clockwork plot machine. They never allow the movie to be the dual character study it so desperately wants you to believe it is, cause when it comes to the business of mapping out your plot, you've got to put your foot in front of the other. The characters' decisions are thus wholly dependent on a string of incidents as opposed to their free will. Even more astonishing, at 93 minutes, the movie feels at least 20 minutes longer. For such rampant story-driven antics, the momentum's just not there.
As if to atone for selling this dour domestic drama as a quirky comedy, Johnson makes sure to insert whimsical scenes of Hader and Wiig goofing off, whether it's an improvised chat on the floor of the dentist's office where Maggie work or, more excruciatingly, when Hader starts lip-syncing Starship's “Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now” … and an initially stone-faced, unamused Maggie eventually joins in the fun. Because a movie about suicidal train wrecks can't be complete without a feel-good quasi-musical number.
Photographer: Picasa
Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig.
The Skeleton Twins, named after a nickname inspired by Mexican Day of the Dead dolls Milo and Maggie late father gave them as kids, has the bare bones of a good movie, as well as a solid supporting cast (Burrell and Wilson deliver the goods.) What it proceeds to do with these elements leaves what's playing on the screen feel downright moribund.
The Skeleton Twins opens Sept. 26 at the AMC Aventura 24, Coral Gables Art Cinema and Regal Cinemas South Beach.
