Movie Review: The Skeleton Twins
What We Liked
What We Didn't Like
It seems that every year, one or two independent films successfully make the jump from film festivals and art house theaters to the multiplexes. This year, that movie is writer and director Craig Johnson’s The Skeleton Twins. Starring Saturday Night Live alums Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as estranged twins that come together after a botched suicide attempt, The Skeleton Twins provides audiences with a sometimes heartbreaking, but ultimately life-affirming look at the meanings of family and friendship.
The movie opens with a brief prologue flashback sequence of young Milo and Maggie as they prepare for Halloween. After the brief set up showing their previous relationship, we flash to present day where Milo (Bill Hader) is visibly drunk and preparing to kill himself. On the other side of the country, Maggie (Kristen Wiig) is on the same wavelength, instead choosing pills over Milo’s booze, drowning, and slit wrist combo. She’s stopped by a phone call about Milo’s unsuccessful attempt. Dropping everything, she goes to California to check on him. It’s there, the audience finds out the closeness between the two has faded and they’ve been essentially estranged for the past decade. Despite the strained relationship, Maggie convinces her brother to go back to New York with her as he gets better.
In New York, Milo realizes his sister has settled in life – married to a guy she has nothing in common with and routinely cheats on. Things get even more complicated when Milo runs into an old flame. As a high school student, Milo had a relationship with one of his teachers named Rich (Modern Family‘s Ty Burrell). While technically statutory rape, Milo still has feelings for his old teacher and acts on them, and becomes furious when he finds out Rich has a child and uses Milo to get a script to Hollywood.
Even through all the depressing things that happen to the twins throughout the movie, their lives seem to get better the more they repair their own relationships. You begin to cheer for the two siblings as they look to repair their lives. And of course, given the fact that the twins are portrayed by Hader and Wiig, it’s understandable to expect plenty of humorous and heart-warming moments during their journey to happiness. The interplay between the two feels natural – like they could be related in real life.
Director Johnson cast his film masterfully. Rounding out the cast with Hader and Wiig is the aforementioned Ty Burrell and Luke Wilson as Maggie’s mismatched husband. While watching The Skeleton Twins, it felt like Johnson understood just how special his cast was and let them loose on his script. Most of the movie going world understands what they’ll get with Wiig, but during the entire runtime of The Skeleton Twins, it became quickly apparent I was watching the coming out party for Bill Hader as a serious actor. While I miss what he added to Saturday Night Live each week, I can’t wait to see what he has to offer cinematically next.
While it touches on mostly depressing topics like suicide, estrangement, infidelity, and molestation, there’s a quirky and uplifting charm to The Skeleton Twins brought about mostly by the two twins themselves. All in all, The Skeleton Twins is a great movie from start to finish that acts as a wonderful ambassador for what the world of independent cinema has to offer.
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