Dead Ringers (1988) or, Brothers and Their Instruments

♥♥♥♥

One almost psychedelic poster for David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers

QUICK REVIEW:

Dead Ringers focuses on two identical twins and their lives as gynecologists.

This is a self-assured and wonderful adaptation of the novel Twins by Bari Wood (The Killing Gift (1975)) and Jack Geasland with the masterful Jeremy Irons (Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)) in a remarkable double role. He gives a performance, (two, in a sense), that makes the film. Irons is both unusually fragile and sexual in this visually taut film, held mostly in greys and strong reds, with photography by great Polish cinematographer Peter Suschitzky (Mars Attacks! (1996)).
At times the clichés in the script, by Canadian master filmmaker David Cronenberg (Scanners (1981)) and Norman Snider (Casino Jack (2010)), get a bit thick: The two pill-popping, high society brothers, their women and their gloomy, gloomy existential issues ... But then again the entire film is so morbid and bizarre that they kind of fit the bill: An example of this could be SPOILER when Irons as one of the twins performs deadly gynecological experiments in a blood-red robe! - Dead Ringers nears the absurd at times and is perhaps a bit artsy-fartsy, but it is also very entertaining.
The ending, SPOILER in which one brother murders the other in a bout of pill-induced madness in an attempt to rejoin the two into one body, is, as the film as a whole, bleak while inviting many interpretations.
- Dead Ringers is a fine film.

Related reviews:
 

Another film about twins: Adaptation (2002) or, Charlie Kaufman's Fictional Life  
David Cronenberg: Cosmopolis (2012) - Cronenberg/DeLillo/Pattinson's speculative limo lullaby
A History of Violence (2005) or, Who Is Tom Stall? 
Spider (2002) - Cronenberg takes us to the tormented (and slightly dull) mind of a schizophrenic 
The Brood (1979) or, Marital Fury and Craze!

Jeremy Irons gets ready for some experimental gynecological maneuvering in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers

Watch the original trailer for the film here

Cost: 13 mil. $
Box office: Between 8-9.1 mil. $ ((different reports), US only)
= Uncertainty
[Dead Ringers entered the US box office at #1 ahead of Die Hard and A Fish Called Wanda according to this news item from the period. Without foreign gross numbers, it is impossible to say whether the film became a hit, although it should surprise me if it did. It has been critically recognized, though, and also won the Genie Award for Best Canadian Film of 1988.]

What do you think of Dead Ringers?
Do you know any other interesting films about twins?