Dead Ringers (1988)

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

I have an undying love for the color red, doppelgangers and surgical instruments. And for Jeremy Irons. I've always thought highly of his acting skills. Here he plays not one, but two complex characters. This body horror explores male deepest fears of the Monstrous Feminine or Vagina Dentata. Genevieve Bujold, of course, has a hard time dating him/them. Don't expect things to go back to normal.

This movie is about two identical twins named "Elliott Mantle" and his brother "Beverly Mantle" (both played by Jeremy Irons) who have shared an interest in medicine all of their lives. But that's not all they share as the slightly older twin, Elliott, is less shy and typically initiates a sexual relationship with a woman and then when he gets tired of her passes her off to Beverly who takes it from there. Although this has worked like a charm for years, one day Elliott just so happens to hand a woman named "Claire Niveau" (Genevieve Bujold) to Beverly who then falls deeply in love with her. To make matters worse, when Claire finds out what has happened she gets angry with both brothers which throws Beverly into an emotional tailspin that results in dramatic consequences for everyone involved. Now from what I understand this movie has apparently garnered both critical and popular approval. That's fine. However, rather than following the proverbial crowd I happen to demur from the overall consensus as I found this movie to be a bit too dark and dreary for my tastes. Admittedly, Jeremy Irons performed in an excellent manner and he deserves whatever praise is offered. But even so I still thought the movie was too slow and boring and as a result I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

Identical Mantle twins Elliot and Beverly (Jeremy Irons) grew up in Toronto, studied in Cambridge and practice gynecology back in Toronto. They make their own instruments and create a popular retractor. Famous actress Claire Niveau (Geneviève Bujold) comes to them with an unique infertility problem. Elliot is the more confident of the brothers. Sometimes he passes women to Beverly without them knowing it. Beverly falls for Claire. Elliot seduces Claire but she is abusing prescription drugs. Elliot would rather drop her for trying to scam pills from him but Beverly takes over. Claire is shocked that they are twins taking advantage of her.Jeremy Irons is amazing at making slight differentiation between the twins. He makes the two characters live. It's a much needed aspect of the movie unless the movie puts name tags on these guys or people keep calling out their names. Their difference matters to the plot. The movie has a cold sterile feel that only adds to the creepiness. It has a callous disturbing mood that is unlike any other horrors.

Cronenberg's unsettling denuding of an identical twins' inseparability wreaks controversy in its in-depth protrusion of psychiatric delusion and drug abuse, Jeremy Irons, plays the Mantle twins, both gynecologists and live together, even perversely share the same woman. Albeit their mirror-image resemblance, Beverly is the shy boffin while Elliot is the gregarious mouthpiece who is astute and dedicative in taking care of his younger brother's every need, after meeting a sterile actress (Claire) who has a mutant vagina, Beverly irrationally falls for her and slowly he becomes drug-addictive and paranoid (cause and effect), and even Elliot couldn't rescue him, a finally unhinged Beverly slips into the abyss and tragedy is irrevocable. Irons offers a tour-de-force engagement by splitting himself into two disparate roles, initially one wonders how could we tell them separately, and 5 minutes later, one will realize how distinguishable they are, Beverly is a meek soul, his life orbit is dominated and regulated by Elliot, who is sensible enough to admit they are an entity since neither of them could live without each other, nonetheless, the equilibrium has fatefully been violated by the interloper Claire, Bujold is feisty and emanates a cocktail of Independence and vulnerability which fatally enchants Beverly and triggers his downhill of the separation procedure. The midstream of the film deals with the decomposition of Beverly's mental stability has damped down by a slightly tedious script, which is wanting some explicable introductions to the mayhem it has caused, but the coda does save the pathos and it is mesmerizing and gives a sucker punch to the gut. Cronenberg's films often leave me some bitter aftertaste, last year's COSMOPOLIS (2012, 4/10) is beyond my interpretation, but DEAD RINGERS has its integral breakdown of a psychosexual drama, and fan-boys will be exulted to indulge in Cronenberg's signature chimerical shots (sundering the umbilical cord, the surgery ceremony in vermilion with a set of eerie apparatus) and there are magical contrivances to put two Jeremy Irons present in the same frames (deeming its pre-computer era), accolades should be also awarded to the film's steadfast emotion liberation, which encroaches inches by inches into the subliminal conscious of its protagonists, a compelling piece of work rests higher on the shelf than Cronenberg's other lesser creations.