Thursday 13 November 2014

The Skeleton Twins (2014)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHETHER SUICIDE IS EVER THE SOLUTION?)

[Now for a bust of a movie that is pure drama despite some comic moments.]

The Skeleton Twins (2014) is an American drama film directed by Craig Johnson, starring Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader and Luke Wilson.

In the end, suicidally depressed serial cheating wife Kristen Wiig is saved from drowning herself by her suicidally depressed gay, child abuse victim, twin brother, Bill Hader.

Interrupted in the midst of her own suicide attempt by the news that her brother is in hospital recovering from his own failed suicide attempt, Wiig flies to Los Angeles and is persuaded to offer him a place to stay in her home in the New York neighbourhood where they grew up.

Meeting his exceedingly friendly and helpful brother-in-law, Luke Wilson, for the first time, Hader is surprised to learn that the couple are trying for a baby, something Wiig was adamantly against in her youth, a fact that she is annoyed to be reminded of by her brother in front of Wilson.

Hader further antagonises his sister when he unilaterally invites their estranged, New Age spiritualist mother to supper, over which old wounds are reopened, when Wiig accuses her of abandoning them for her new interracial family, following the suicide of their father.

Attempting to appease his sister by allowing her to demonstrate her skills as a dental hygienist, out of hours, at the practice where she works, the pair, high on laughing gas, swap secrets, Hader admitting he has experienced heterosexual sex, while Wiig reveals that not only is she sabotaging Wilson's attempts to start a family, but she is cheating on him with her scuba class instructor, the third such liaison she has embarked upon since they were married.

However, when the police find Hader drunk on the edge of a roof top, he keeps secret from Wiig the fact that he has hooked up with and then been rejected by an initially wary English teacher who has married and had a son since being forced to give up his post, as a result of Wiig uncovering his abuse of her brother as a teen, instead blaming his reckless behaviour on disappointment at not having succeeded since leaving school, as their father had assured him he would.

But when Wiig accidentally discovers, during Halloween celebrations, that Hader has been in contact with the abuser she tried to save him from, the siblings mutual support breaks down completely, Hader only making matters worse by cluing Wilson in on Wiig's birth-control subterfuge, leading to her confession of infidelity, that, despite having dumped her lover, ends in the breakup of her marriage.

The emotional confrontation between Wiig and her brother where each blames the other for ruining their chances of a happy life, prompts Hader to seek an explanation of what his abuse meant to his abuser, that finally confirms Wiig was correct in her estimation of events.

With her marriage over, and without the support of her brother, Wiig decides to finally act on her suicidal tendencies, that Hader only recognises in time to save her from, when she sends him a message reminiscent of his own original suicide note.


Despite remarkably convincing performances from both Hader and Wiig that perfectly capture the love-hate nature of sibling relationships and in particular the special bond that can exist between twins, it is hard to know what to take away from this unremittingly grim tale of despair and disappointment, other that the fact that if you're serious about committing suicide, you need to be a bit more secretive about it than either of these two characters manage.

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skeleton_Twins