Film Review: The Skeleton Twins *** 1/2
On paper, The Skeleton Twins looks like just another of the seemingly endless dysfunctional family comedies that come out each year. The film draws upon all of the hot button issues and clichés it can find: suicide attempts, estranged parents, secrets being shared while high, two siblings who hate each other only to find their connection again, it goes and on and yet, there’s something special about The Skeleton Twins. The performances and screenplay elevate it above another of those endless films like Family Stone and move it closer to the greatness of You Can Count on Me or Silver Linings Playbook.
Milo’s (Bill Hader), a depressed gay actor in L.A., suicide attempt interrupts his twin sister’s, Maggie (Kristen Wiig), own suicide attempt. Already we see the inherent connection in these two siblings despite their ten years apart. Maggie decides that she will save her brother and flies out to LA to invite him to come back and live with her and her overly cheery husband, Lance (a perfectly cast Luke Wilson who so expertly navigates ridiculous naiveté and a real character). Milo takes the opportunity to try to solve his problems by meeting the first man he fell in love with (an overrated Ty Burrell) and restore his relationship with his overbearing mother (a wonderful but slightly underused Johanna Gleeson). All the while, Maggie is dealing with her own issues with her husband and distracts from that by trying to “treat” her brother.
Where the film excels is in the quiet moments between Milo and Maggie. Their relationship is not only the key to the movie, but the key to both of their healing. How could two people so obviously close drift so far apart? Well, the simple answer is their mother has something to do with that, but the reality and the genuine revelations the film provides is that life causes us to run from those who could help us the most.
Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, along with the excellent screenplay, are what create this movie. Hader and Wiig draw upon their own friendship and history to create real characters where this easily could have veered toward the clichés the film is based upon. But the characters these two actors craft understand what a sibling relationship means. Their inside jokes are so perfectly timed and are even more hysterical for the fact that poor Lance doesn’t get them. In one of those scenes, Milo cheers up his sister, while Lance stares bewildered by what is going on. Milo’s choice of inspiration? Lip synching to Starships pop disaster “Nothing’s Going to Stop Us Now,” a song that I never wanted to hear again, but the film uses it so wisely and the performances are so good that I found myself signing it as I left the theatre. Those who know me know… I don’t sing. Wiig has done more dramatic roles in her short but great film career, but for Hader this role is a revelation. In the one ingenious use of costume work, Milo is “freed” to be himself by dressing in drag on Halloween and that allows the siblings to finally take off the masks that have been built trying to live what they thought was the “perfect” life for themselves.
The best thing that can be said about the direction is that Craig Johnson in his sophomore film doesn’t get in the way of the script her wrote or the performances he gets out of his very talented cast. I’m not sure the style adds anything to the movie, but it also doesn’t detract from it with overly symbolic shots or stunning camera work. A little more finesse would have been nice, but it is understandable why The Skeleton Twins won the Sundance Film Festival Screenwriting Award.
In a great year of film so far, The Skeleton Twins might get lost, but I hope it doesn’t.
