The Skeleton Twins
Directed by: Craig Johnson
Cast: Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Ty Burrell, Luke Wilson
Running Time: 1 hr 45 mins
Rating: R
Release Date: September 12, 2014 (Chicago)
PLOT: After trying to commit suicide, failed actor Milo (Hader) moves in with his sister Maggie (Wiig), who has her own personal problems.
WHO'S IT FOR? Those who like Hader & Wiig, even when they aren’t working with the strongest of material.
OVERALL
Craig Johnson’s The Skeleton Twins is a humdrum dramedy that never comes to life, despite the talents that have been united for its existence. Featuring two evolving “Saturday Night Live” alums and executive produced by Mark & Jay Duplass, the film prods along with its character study into fictional beings whose dimensions are greatly reduced when they are seen as more than just sad people. At its most valuable, The Skeleton Twins is an observation on various experiences of depression, as nonetheless articulated by half-performances that don’t create the impression of flesh-and-blood human beings.
The tale of The Skeleton Twins plays like a lacking film adaptation of a line from Steve McQueen’s Shame, which provided the only clue of a past for its tormented brother and sister characters: “we’re not bad people, we just come from a bad place.” This film finds brother Milo (Bill Hader) after an attempted suicide, (“another gay cliche,” he states on his hospital bed), triggered from his failure at becoming an actor in Los Angeles. He is put in the care of his sister Maggie (Kristen Wiig), who had an overdose-amount of pills ready in her right hand before getting a call from the hospital.
Though the two haven’t spoken in ten years, they soon rediscover their bond over acerbic humor and the general macabre. Outside of their own relationship, in parallel fashion they wallow in the issues that brought each of them close to their deaths. Milo is still hung up on Rich (Ty Burrell) a former teacher of whom he had an illegal relationship with; Maggie is married to Lance (Luke Wilson), but finds herself so restless with him that she becomes unfaithful, while also sneaking birth control pills despite Lance’s efforts to make her a mother.
Casting Hader & Wiig as brother and sister is a loaded choice, of which Johnson’s storytelling is not able to entirely justify. Both of the actors do have the ability to create palpable character, but their narrative direction is so sludgy it leaves these actors with creating only the impression of experiences, as if Hader & Wiig are now play-acting melancholy. As actors, the two certainly need each other, as their separate existences aren’t strong on their own.
Hader & Wiig work best within the script’s anti-depressant moments, carefully-portioned comic bursts that honor the acerbic humor they share. In turn, the dry darkness within The Skeleton Twins turns out to provide the film some of its dullest of doses. When it plays itself completely straight, the drama lacks enough stability, and nears humorless melodrama. These are vessel characters whose hollowness is mistaken for a enigmatic psychosis. And while we like these characters for their unique representation of the indefinable sibling bond, pitying them in their most urgent moments feels to be a needy gesture.
FINAL SCORE: 5/10