Skeletons in the closet
2015; Elsevier BV; Volume: 2; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/s2215-0366(15)00286-2
ISSN2215-0374
Autores Tópico(s)Gender Roles and Identity Studies
ResumoThe American Indie film Skeleton Twins was a breakout success at Sundance, winning the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. Separated by thousands of miles, estranged twins contemplate suicide at the same moment. Maggie, who seems to lead the perfect life, is about to swallow a heap of pills when she receives a phone call. Her brother, Milo, has cut his wrists and is in hospital. Despite 10 years of distance, Maggie is on the next flight, a journey to drag her gay, failed-actor brother back to the small town they both grew up in. The town is full of skeletal remnants of their past—the Day of the Dead toys Milo and Maggie were given by their father, the teacher whose affair with Milo was or wasn't molestation (depending on which twin you listen to), the lie Milo's father told in insisting that the school freak always gets to become cool. But the main skeleton is that of their father, buried in a graveyard the twins have avoided since his death by suicide when they were 14 years old. Although such a setup might suggest that Skeleton Twins is a horror or tragedy, the film sits firmly within the tradition of tragicomedy. Lead actors Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader are comic royalty as alumni of America's Saturday Night Live. The pair relish in visual gags, be that goofing around with false-teeth in the dental office where Maggie works, or lip-synching 1980s pop classic duet Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now. As the twins become closer again, their humour begins to sync too, excluding us the viewers in that way the particular intensity of teenage humour can. When the return of adult stuff—sex, abuse, babies—threatens to split the twins again, the tragic is handled with admirable lightness of touch. For every big revelation, there is subtle signing of how these events had been affecting the twins' lives. Thus, Maggie's “big Labrador retriever” of a husband, a parody of will-do cheerful optimism, drops the bombshell that she has had occasional emotional “landmines” for years. By the end of his sentence, his insight is gone. Haden and Wiig touch us most when their defences are down, when their humour fails, when only a stark choice—between death or the act of life that is putting things into words—remains. Although using a close connection to find the will to acknowledge and heal is not a new preoccupation of drama, the plot's focus on sibling rather than romantic love, hate, and redemption offers something fresh. For sibling relationships—often the longest, most intense of our lives—shape our defences and our solutions, just as they do for Maggie and Milo. Although the uncanny synchronicity we find at the beginning and the end of the film has been questioned by critics, it is not so peculiar after all. For shared events long ago set up a narrative arc that sometimes only a shock, such as a breakdown—or a suicide attempt—can help alter. Skeleton Twins Craig Johnson, 2014 Running time: 93 min Skeleton Twins Craig Johnson, 2014 Running time: 93 min
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