Double Exposure Review: The Skeleton Twins

In “The Skeleton Twins,” Craig Johnson’s sophomore feature, SNL alums Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig play Milo and Maggie Dean, two twins from upstate New York who have slowly drifted apart since the death of their beloved father. After Milo attempts suicide, Maggie decides to take him in – learning that he’s living alone in LA as a result of a failed acting career and a recent breakup. When Milo meets Maggie’s husband of two years, Lance (Luke Wilson), for the first time, he decides to reconnect with his first lover, a high school English teacher (Ty Burrell) who seduced him when he was only 15, and tries to make amends with Maggie, whom he hasn’t seen in a decade.

Taylor Sinople: There’s “it feels ready-made for Sundance!” and then there’s “it’s practically made for Sundance.” With comedic actors trying out serious (sometimes tragic) drama, the Duplass Brothers producing, and a mid-second-act sing-a-long, “The Skeleton Twins” is without a doubt “made for “Sundance,” but it mostly claims the positive of the two insinuations. It’s a human comedy with a whole lot of human pain that will probably please a lot of “Garden State” fans that may have felt let down by Zach Braff’s follow-up, “Wish I Was Here.”

Josef Rodriguez: To me, “Garden State” is truly a feel-good movie. It’s marked by tragedy, but in the end it’s a slightly dramatic comedy, whereas “The Skeleton Twins” is a slightly comedic drama, and a dark one at that. I would compare this to an even darker and more realistic amalgamation of “Little Miss Sunshine” and the Duplass’ “Jeff, Who Lives at Home,” which also takes a unique look at sibling relations. Even then, as “made for Sundance” as this film is, there’s something so wholly original about it that I can’t place my finger on, and I have to say that I kind of loved it.

 

Taylor: SNL buddies Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig round off the edges of their zany sketch characters and land on two humble, real ones. We knew Wiig could do it after films such as “Bridesmaids” and 2013’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” so Hader is probably the more surprising performance. Hader lets Milo be Milo, and doesn’t let in more than a flash or two of the “Bill Hader” comedian persona you may expect going into the film. Milo is one of the most memorable characters of the year in his unpredictable plummeting from song and dance to a deep sadness. And because Hader respects who Milo is so much, the screenplay can make a few over-the-top jokes about his homosexuality (he tries to meet a man in a gay bar on “Dyke Night”) without ever offending.

Josef: I would agree that Hader’s performance is pitch-perfect. Hell, it’s downright delightful. But I would disagree that this wasn’t a surprise from Kristen Wiig as well. Her performance here is her best work yet and is a far cry from anything she’s ever done before. “Bridesmaids” was an episode of Sesame Street compared to this movie, and the commitment from both Hader and Wiig is astonishing. We also can’t forget to mention Luke Wilson, who gives his best performance since “The Royal Tenenbaums.” I think he’s going to get overshadowed by Hader and Wiig, but his work here is undoubtedly on the same level as his two co-stars.

Taylor: Luke Wilson is definitely the film’s secret weapon, and his “golden retriever” personality not only gives “Skeleton Twins” the right balance on the emotional spectrum, but it actually comes off as earnest. Both Wilson brothers can become dangerously over-saturated, but it’s great to see them used to perfect effect.

Josef: Luke Wilson is a hugely underrated talent, and is able to pull out a great performance with the right material. I think he proved that here, and I agree that both Wilson brothers can become unbearable when they aren’t directed well, but it’s obvious that Luke’s own real-life connection with suicide and the care of a talented filmmaker helped him give what is possibly the best performance of his career.

Of course, none of these performances, or the excellent script by director Craig Johnson and Mark Heyman, will be recognized by the Academy Awards, but I think the “made for Sundance” films want to be as good as “The Skeleton Twins” really, truly is.

Taylor: What I found as the film went on, though, is that a lot of this delicate work is made nearly ineffectual by the multiple returns to suicide. It works as an interesting conceit to draw Milo and Maggie together again after ten years apart, but as the characters return to self-harm several times throughout the film, I had big problems with the way suicide was presented as an alternative to dealing with emotional conflict. There was something about the balance of the very funny comedy situations and the portrayal of jumping off a building as a form of “acting out” that felt irresponsibly managed.

Josef: I would have to disagree pretty heavily here. I think this film is one of the most realistic depictions of chronic or clinical depression that I’ve seen in an extremely long time. The way that the film’s happiest and funniest moments are almost always immediately undermined by a sudden crisis or argument perfectly reflects the mood of two hopelessly depressed individuals attempting to help each other stay afloat, which ties heavily into the strong water motif that’s presented throughout. I think everyone involved with this movie knew exactly what they were doing, and the result is, in my opinion, one of the most compelling and sobering depictions of depression I’ve seen, made even more effective by the warm, low-grade cinematography and subtly executed score. I do think that there are definitely some pacing issues, most notably a lull in the second act, and an aggravatingly convenient ending that slightly undoes the 90 minutes that preceded it. But to play devil’s advocate, I think the ending is the only time in the film where the twins are recognized as such, and that supposed “sixth sense” comes into play for the first time. All the in-jokes, rituals, and knowing looks have nothing on those final moments when Milo shows up exactly when he needs to.

Taylor: To me, the motivation and explanation for their depression was sort of there, but the use of suicide as a plot-advancing device was completely derogatory to me. I didn’t feel many of their darker moments were necessarily earned by the screenplay, which was more interested in developing an audience-ready dramedy than investing in the courage it takes to really dive into depression, child abuse, and infidelity. It was all very transparent to me as a film that exists to put two familiar comedy actors in a dramatic situation and then pile on the pain to subvert expectations. I laughed at many scenes and was taken aback by one hard-hitting argument between Milo and Maggie, but I was never swept up in their lives because of the way that suicide was at several times tacked on in an attempt to elevate the stakes of the drama.

Josef: Personally, “The Skeleton Twins” is about as far as “audience-ready” as any Sundance film comes. There are no silver linings at the end, both of these characters are at the very ends of their respective ropes, and the film, as a whole, is an emotionally draining experience. I laughed, but all the jokes are in the trailers, and the 89 minute film we don’t see in the trailer is a hugely impactful family drama that touches upon very real themes involving suicide and regret. Admittedly, this movie has nearly five suicide or near-suicide attempts in it, but there was never a moment that I felt they were unearned. Everybody copes differently, and one way to cope with depression is to assume the position of a suicide, but not to go through with it, as to mentally re-establish the power struggle of mental vs. physical. The fact that a film like this even touched upon those themes is miraculous to me, and I think everything was handled with care and sensitivity.

Taylor: I understand the legitimacy of that form of coping, but I felt that this particular film used it as a simple device in the same way you might see a climactic dance scene used. I registered it as mechanical and methodical, not emotional and bold. Where something like “Shame” ripped me apart with its raw portrayal of a disorder, “The Skeleton Twins” registered to me as a comedy experiment in plunging these familiar funny-faces into unfamiliar drama territory. And I think using these well-known faces to deliver comedy like the lip-syncing scene or laughing-gas scene and then showing us that they will try to end their lives at the drop of a hat in reaction to an emotional hardship is a risky conflict to put out there – and one that I would have been interested in siding with were it not so completely irrelevant to the far more satisfying meat of the story which is seeing these two siblings finally coming to terms with who they are and what they’ve done.