In Twins’ cold open, a group of scientists undertake a secret experimental procedure where they combine the genetic material of six ideal fathers to try and foster the perfect child. The unexpected outcome is twin brothers, Julius and Vincent Benedict, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. The experiment is considered a failure and the two boys are separated from each other and their mother, with Julius being sent to live on a remote Pacific island with one of the scientists and Vincent being dropped off at an orphanage. The plot properly kicks off when the perfect specimen Julius, a master of languages and academics, turns 35 and is told by his “father” about the existence of Vincent. Julius wastes no time setting off on a journey to LA in search of his long-lost brother, starting with one of the better visual gags in the movie: Julius rowing himself to the nearest island airport, clipping across the ocean at about 50 knots, powered by muscles alone. It doesn’t take long for Julius to find his small-time crook of a brother once he makes landfall, and the ensuing adventure to find their mother also somehow involves Julius learning how to date a girl, and Vincent accidentally stealing a high-tech MacGuffin and being chased by a hitman whose suppressed pistol leaves corpses wherever he goes. This PG-rated comedy has a bodycount of at least 5.
Besides the overstuffed adventure/road trip narrative, the notion of DeVito and Schwarzenegger being related and their appearing on screen together while various shenanigans ensue is pretty much 95% of the selling point of the film, which made it perfect for the heyday of Hollywood’s high-concept comedy era. While it ended up being a blockbuster, the project was actually considered a gamble for all the major players involved, since Arnie had yet to do a major comedy role at this point in his career. Could Conan, The Terminator, and the man who killed the Predator make ‘em laugh? It turns out he could, and his work as Julius is easily one of the highlights of the picture, combining a knack for physical comedy (sometimes just how he stands can get a laugh) with a dry, dopey dialogue delivery that perfectly suits the role.
Reitman later returned to the experimental fertility science theme with DeVito and Schwarzenegger in tow as a pair of OB/GYN doctors for Junior (1994), this time impregnating Arnie. One wonders what Cronenberg thought of that strange comedy and also whether the obstetricians of the world have ever been so widely represented on the silver screen again as they were between 1988 and 1994?
"One wonders what Cronenberg thought of that strange comedy and also whether the obstetricians of the world have ever been so widely represented on the silver screen again as they were between 1988 and 1994?"
Here we begin to unravel the double helix that entwines Twins and Dead Ringers. Reitman, the big-budget comedy impresario best known for helming the first two Ghostbusters movies, also produced the early Cronenberg films Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977). Cronenberg, a fellow Torontonian who mostly cut his teeth on sci-fi body horror flicks found his next project following the major success of The Fly (1986) with a book based on the real-life story of identical twin gynecologists Stewart and Cyril Marcus. That book, written by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland and titled Twins (1977), recounted a fictionalized version of the story of the Marcus brothers, who lived and worked in New York before being found dead under strange circumstances in 1975. Cronenberg’s film was actually to be titled Twins while Reitman’s would be called Brothers, before concern about audiences confusing the two similarly named films and a bit of Hollywood inside baseball got Reitman the rights to use Twins for his film.
What Cronenberg turned out, once the marketing details were sorted, is rightly regarded as one of his finest films. Trading ooey gooey special effects for a cerebral phantasmagoria, it is remarkable for the air of dread it conjures largely through implications and ideas rather than any on-screen bloodletting. The crux of the story is carried by a complex and compelling duet by Jeremy Irons, playing the twin doctors Beverly and Elliot Mantle. Superficially identical in every way—though Elliot quibbles he’s “actually a couple millimetres taller”—Dead Ringers introduces us to the duo as a sort of sinister Frasier and Niles Crane. By day, the two are renowned gynecologists operating a cutting edge fertility clinic, while by night they wine and dine their way through Toronto, bedding beautiful women as they please. The hitch is that shy Beverly relies on his brother’s superior romantic abilities to find their girlfriends, secretly swapping with Elliot in the bedroom once Elliot’s had enough of his latest catch. This arrangement is thrown for a loop when an actress, Claire Niveau (Geneviève Bujold), turns up at the clinic, gets drawn into the Mantle’s web but catches on to their deceit.
"Dead Ringers introduces us to the pair as a sort of sinister Frasier and Niles Crane."
For whatever reason, Claire decides to continue her relationship with Beverly after confronting the twins, and this sets their downfall in motion. Beverly soon joins her in a prescription drug habit, and, when confronted by the tribulations of an actual emotional relationship with another person besides Elliot, spirals into a depression. The second half of Dead Ringers follows the Mantles’ hazy descent into psychic obliteration, as Beverly becomes obsessed with the idea of “mutant women” and Elliot begins to partake of Claire and Bev’s pills in an effort to restore the brothers’ equilibrium. Cronenberg creates a steely, doom-laden atmosphere throughout, with only brief flashes of visceral horror, real and imagined. In spite of its coldness and severity, the film still has room for sympathy and even pity as we see the brothers in a confused and broken state.
This nuanced approach to the characterization of the Mantle twins was an explicit part of Cronenberg’s goal with Dead Ringers. While it initially presents Beverly and Elliot in the traditional Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde dichotomy, the two are not merely a mirror image of one another (besides physically). “The difference between this movie and any other twins movie I’ve ever seen or heard of is that there is not an evil twin. They’re supposed to be real people, subtle, complex, difficult,” Cronenberg told Spin in a 1988 interview. The Mantles support and rely on one another, and their dynamic shifts continuously throughout the film.
Twins, perhaps surprisingly, finds its own way to avoid becoming another of the generic twin stories that Cronenberg called out. Towards the film’s centerpoint, Julius and Vincent meet with one of the scientists behind the secret project that bore them into the world. The scientist makes it brutally clear that something went wrong when the two brothers were born. “All the purity and strength went into Julius. All the crap that was left over went into what you see in the mirror every morning,” he says to a bewildered and devastated Vincent. But Reitman and co. take this message about the possibility of being a born loser and spin it on its head, in fact, they put the argument of nurture vs. nature into the mouth of the dictionary-definition-of-the-ubermensch, Julius. He comforts Vincent after the conversation, arguing that he was given every chance to excel and succeed at life, while Vince was abandoned and left to struggle for survival all alone. Julius tells him that can finally change now that they’re reunited: “You’re the missing part of my life and I’m the missing part of your life.”
In Twins’ cold open, a group of scientists undertake a secret experimental procedure where they combine the genetic material of six ideal fathers to try and foster the perfect child. The unexpected outcome is twin brothers, Julius and Vincent Benedict, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. The experiment is considered a failure and the two boys are separated from each other and their mother, with Julius being sent to live on a remote Pacific island with one of the scientists and Vincent being dropped off at an orphanage. The plot properly kicks off when the perfect specimen Julius, a master of languages and academics, turns 35 and is told by his “father” about the existence of Vincent. Julius wastes no time setting off on a journey to LA in search of his long-lost brother, starting with one of the better visual gags in the movie: Julius rowing himself to the nearest island airport, clipping across the ocean at about 50 knots, powered by muscles alone. It doesn’t take long for Julius to find his small-time crook of a brother once he makes landfall, and the ensuing adventure to find their mother also somehow involves Julius learning how to date a girl, and Vincent accidentally stealing a high-tech MacGuffin and being chased by a hitman whose suppressed pistol leaves corpses wherever he goes. This PG-rated comedy has a bodycount of at least 5.
Besides the overstuffed adventure/road trip narrative, the notion of DeVito and Schwarzenegger being related and their appearing on screen together while various shenanigans ensue is pretty much 95% of the selling point of the film, which made it perfect for the heyday of Hollywood’s high-concept comedy era. While it ended up being a blockbuster, the project was actually considered a gamble for all the major players involved, since Arnie had yet to do a major comedy role at this point in his career. Could Conan, The Terminator, and the man who killed the Predator make ‘em laugh? It turns out he could, and his work as Julius is easily one of the highlights of the picture, combining a knack for physical comedy (sometimes just how he stands can get a laugh) with a dry, dopey dialogue delivery that perfectly suits the role.
Reitman later returned to the experimental fertility science theme with DeVito and Schwarzenegger in tow as a pair of OB/GYN doctors for Junior (1994), this time impregnating Arnie. One wonders what Cronenberg thought of that strange comedy and also whether the obstetricians of the world have ever been so widely represented on the silver screen again as they were between 1988 and 1994?
"One wonders what Cronenberg thought of that strange comedy and also whether the obstetricians of the world have ever been so widely represented on the silver screen again as they were between 1988 and 1994?"
Here we begin to unravel the double helix that entwines Twins and Dead Ringers. Reitman, the big-budget comedy impresario best known for helming the first two Ghostbusters movies, also produced the early Cronenberg films Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977). Cronenberg, a fellow Torontonian who mostly cut his teeth on sci-fi body horror flicks found his next project following the major success of The Fly (1986) with a book based on the real-life story of identical twin gynecologists Stewart and Cyril Marcus. That book, written by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland and titled Twins (1977), recounted a fictionalized version of the story of the Marcus brothers, who lived and worked in New York before being found dead under strange circumstances in 1975. Cronenberg’s film was actually to be titled Twins while Reitman’s would be called Brothers, before concern about audiences confusing the two similarly named films and a bit of Hollywood inside baseball got Reitman the rights to use Twins for his film.
What Cronenberg turned out, once the marketing details were sorted, is rightly regarded as one of his finest films. Trading ooey gooey special effects for a cerebral phantasmagoria, it is remarkable for the air of dread it conjures largely through implications and ideas rather than any on-screen bloodletting. The crux of the story is carried by a complex and compelling duet by Jeremy Irons, playing the twin doctors Beverly and Elliot Mantle. Superficially identical in every way—though Elliot quibbles he’s “actually a couple millimetres taller”—Dead Ringers introduces us to the duo as a sort of sinister Frasier and Niles Crane. By day, the two are renowned gynecologists operating a cutting edge fertility clinic, while by night they wine and dine their way through Toronto, bedding beautiful women as they please. The hitch is that shy Beverly relies on his brother’s superior romantic abilities to find their girlfriends, secretly swapping with Elliot in the bedroom once Elliot’s had enough of his latest catch. This arrangement is thrown for a loop when an actress, Claire Niveau (Geneviève Bujold), turns up at the clinic, gets drawn into the Mantle’s web but catches on to their deceit.
"Dead Ringers introduces us to the pair as a sort of sinister Frasier and Niles Crane."
For whatever reason, Claire decides to continue her relationship with Beverly after confronting the twins, and this sets their downfall in motion. Beverly soon joins her in a prescription drug habit, and, when confronted by the tribulations of an actual emotional relationship with another person besides Elliot, spirals into a depression. The second half of Dead Ringers follows the Mantles’ hazy descent into psychic obliteration, as Beverly becomes obsessed with the idea of “mutant women” and Elliot begins to partake of Claire and Bev’s pills in an effort to restore the brothers’ equilibrium. Cronenberg creates a steely, doom-laden atmosphere throughout, with only brief flashes of visceral horror, real and imagined. In spite of its coldness and severity, the film still has room for sympathy and even pity as we see the brothers in a confused and broken state.
This nuanced approach to the characterization of the Mantle twins was an explicit part of Cronenberg’s goal with Dead Ringers. While it initially presents Beverly and Elliot in the traditional Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde dichotomy, the two are not merely a mirror image of one another (besides physically). “The difference between this movie and any other twins movie I’ve ever seen or heard of is that there is not an evil twin. They’re supposed to be real people, subtle, complex, difficult,” Cronenberg told Spin in a 1988 interview. The Mantles support and rely on one another, and their dynamic shifts continuously throughout the film.
Twins, perhaps surprisingly, finds its own way to avoid becoming another of the generic twin stories that Cronenberg called out. Towards the film’s centerpoint, Julius and Vincent meet with one of the scientists behind the secret project that bore them into the world. The scientist makes it brutally clear that something went wrong when the two brothers were born. “All the purity and strength went into Julius. All the crap that was left over went into what you see in the mirror every morning,” he says to a bewildered and devastated Vincent. But Reitman and co. take this message about the possibility of being a born loser and spin it on its head, in fact, they put the argument of nurture vs. nature into the mouth of the dictionary-definition-of-the-ubermensch, Julius. He comforts Vincent after the conversation, arguing that he was given every chance to excel and succeed at life, while Vince was abandoned and left to struggle for survival all alone. Julius tells him that can finally change now that they’re reunited: “You’re the missing part of my life and I’m the missing part of your life.”