Shadows on the Wall | The Silent Twins

The Silent Twins

dir Agnieszka Smoczynska
scr Andrea Seigel
prd Klaudia Smieja, Joshua Horsfield, Ben Pugh, Ewa Puszczynsk, Anita Gou, Alicia Van Couvering, Letitia Wright
with Letitia Wright, Tamara Lawrance, Leah Mondesir-Simmonds, Eva-Arianna Baxter, Nadine Marshall, Treva Etienne, Michael Smiley, Jodhi May, Jack Bandeira, Kinga Preis, Amarah-Jae St Aubyn, Hubert Sylla
release US 16.Sep.22,
UK 9.Dec.22
22/UK 1h53

CANNES FILM FEST

Is it streaming?

A haunting true story, this drama gets so far under the skin of its central characters that it feels like a horror movie. Director Agnieszka Smoczynska expertly balances the jarring contrast between internal and external life for twin girls who will only speak to each other. Strikingly shot and edited, this is beautifully played by four gifted actresses. It's also remarkably engaging for such a deeply disturbing tale.

In 1970s Wales, twins June and Jennifer (Mondesir-Simmonds and Baxter) grow up in a loving family, but their parents (Marshall and Etienne) are concerned that they fall into silence whenever anyone else is around. While the family adapts to them, this causes serious problems at school, even for concerned teachers like Tim (Smiley). As teens (now Wright and Lawrance) they are separated. Then after a run-in with the law, they're sent to Broadmoor psychiatric hospital indefinitely, simply because no one knows what to do with them. There the journalist Marjorie (May) takes up their cause.

At the start, Smoczynska reveals the inner universe these creative girls build around themselves, shown in wonderfully textured stop-motion animation accompanied by songs inspired by their real-life writings. Indeed, they are prolific storytellers, composing poems and even novels. June's novel The Pepsi-Cola Addict is published during their 11 years in Broadmoor for a crime that normally carries a maximum two-year penalty. Thankfully, the film includes some wonderfully light moments, even as it never shies away from the bleaker elements.

Performances have a startling delicacy, as both pairs of actresses balance the twins' inner and outer worlds in a way that allows us to understand their "you and me against the world" mindset. While Mondesir-Simmonds and Baxter beautifully depict the giggly girliness they hide from everyone else, Wright and Lawrance take the characters through adolescence with bracing insight, as they flirt with a confident guy (a superb Bandeira) who leads them in dangerous new directions. And the harrowing hospital sequences finely put the audience right into their experience.

Both Smoczynska's direction and Siegel's writing continually add knowing details that carefully build the unusual sense of reality June and Jennifer construct around themselves. This adds an electrical charge to their interaction with people they see as outsiders, including their own family members. It also makes the film a striking comment both on the failings of Britain's mental health and justice systems and on how society treats people they can't be bothered to understand.

themes, language, violence, drugs, sexuality .22

R E A D E R R E V I E W S

Still waiting for your comments ... don't be shy.