Dead Ringers (1988)

Excellent but underrated film

A different way of telling a story

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Good horror movies are the ones that mimic the reality as much as possible and the best ones are those that have their base dug into the psychology. ''Dead Ringers" is one of those flicks, giving us the truly twisted story about the identical twins that share their business and private life seemingly without remorse. Jeremy Irons portrays both characters with a terrifying ease as the script takes the similar dive into the world of true pathology and perversion, climaxing in a saddening end. ''Dead Ringers" is the best Cronenberg's flick and the role Jeremy Irons played in his career.

Jeremy Irons plays the dual roles of Beverly / "Bev" and Elliot / "Ellie" Mantle in this unnerving, depressing tale of the incredible bond between two identical twin brothers. They run a fertility clinic, and up to now, they've had some enjoyment with the fact that people can't tell them apart. However, when the more confident Elliot passes on his newest girlfriend, Claire Niveau (Genevieve Bujold), to his weaker, more sensitive sibling Beverly, it leads to the beginning of big trouble for both of them.As is often the case with a David Cronenberg film, here you get something interesting and intellectual. Something also off-putting (to some people, anyway), but fascinating. Despite its slow pace, it really draws you into this offbeat story (based on the book "Twins" by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland, itself inspired by a *true* story!). True enough that it has a somewhat detached, clinical feel to it, but thanks to the masterful acting by Irons, and the appealing work by Bujold, you do get involved with these characters. Irons does a wonderful job of playing two men with differing personalities. This is aided by typically slick movie trickery (split screen, body doubles) that help one actor to convincingly portray twin characters on screen.Cronenberg and his regular collaborators, like editor Ronald Sanders and cinematographer Peter Suschitzky, are like a well-oiled machine; it's cool that he's developed these partnerships over the years. Howard Shore, always a composer who can bring a very grandiose and ominous quality to movie music, does a typically fine job here.Although a number of the horrors here are psychological (and psycho sexual), Cronenberg still has the idea of "body horror" on the brain, and there are some fun gory moments. Those surgical instruments that the unstable Beverly designs for supposed "mutant women" are very amusing in a hideous, twisted way.Not exactly a "feel good movie", but fans of the director will find a fair bit to enjoy here.Future 'Law and Order' actress Jill Hennessy makes her film debut, appearing alongside HER real life twin sister Jacqueline.Eight out of 10.

The twin brothers Beverly and Elliot Mantle are close to each other since they were kids. They are bright students at the medical school were they undergraduate in gynecology. They work in their clinic Mantle Inc. where Beverly (Jeremy Irons) is shy and hard worker and Elliot is eloquent, cynical and daring. When the actress Claire Niveau (Genevieve Bujold) comes to their clinic for a fertilization treatment, Elliot seduces her and they have one night stand. Elliot offers Claire to Beverly and soon he falls in love with her. Claire is addicted in pills and Beverly becomes also addicted. When Claire accidentally discovers that Beverly has an identical twin brother, she finds the truth about her initial affair with Elliot and breaks up with Beverly. He becomes depressed and uses more pills reaching the rock bottom. Elliot decides to use pills to "synchronize" with his brother leading the Mantle's brothers to a tragic end. "Dead Ringers" is a strange and mesmerizing film by David Cronenberg. The story of identical twin brothers with different behaviors that are affected by a woman has outstanding performance of Jeremy Irons associated to a great edition work. The film is gruesome in many moments and the conclusion is predictable, with the destruction of both twins. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Gêmeos - Mórbida Semelhança" ("Twins – Morbid Ressemblance")

Recommendable. A movie about a special couple of brothers, who transformed themselves from geeky children interested in medical sciences to forty something gynecologists at the top of their field. They have a special emotional bond that makes them play with their identities, without other people being aware of it, because they look exactly the same. Different, but completely dependable, the sex games they play are bound to spiral out of control, and so they do, completely changing the look of both the brothers and their environments. The aesthetics of the movie are extremely thoroughly done, and you wont find a scene that doesn't fit the cold upper class 80's corporate theme. Marble covered walls, steel elevators, tall ornamented wooden doors and wide open spaces with a 80's futuristic and almost dysphoric noir feel going on. Doctors are dressed like members of secret cults, and the brothers lives and the work they do play out like elaborate rituals. And as the movie progresses their super organized apartment becomes a messy wasteland mirroring the state they are in. This is a multilayered movie that definitely will reveal itself even more on a second watching, even though psychological involvement is sometimes a little hard, maybe because of the movies lack of warmth.