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| Uneasy Twins: Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig star in the uneven suicide comedy "The Skeleton Twins." |
The two lost and troubled souls at the center of “The
Skeleton Twins”—a well-acted, sometimes funny but shaky blend of comedy and
drama directed by Craig Johnson from a script by Johnson and Mark Heyman—are a
brother and sister tandem who have not seen each other in ten years, drifting
apart despite a seemingly happy childhood together. Things have not gone
particularly well since the split.
The brother, Milo (Bill Hader), hasn’t been able to get
his acting career going after moving to Los Angeles; while his sister, Maggie
(Kristen Wiig), lives in New York and is married to a nice guy (a grinning,
sycophantic Luke Wilson) that she constantly cheats on. Although they occupy
spaces on opposite ends of the country, the twins are linked by a tragedy—the
suicide death of their father—that continues to torment them; however, in a
macabre twist, it also manages to bring them closer.
Shortly after the movie begins, Milo is recovering from his
own suicide attempt, lying in a hospital bed with bandaged wrists. Maggie has
flown in to see him, having received the phone call regarding his condition just
in time before gulping a deadly handful of pills.
Later, there will be more suicide scares, ranging from
understated (Milo contemplates a belly flop from the roof of a building) to
lurid (Maggie ropes herself to heavy weights before plunging into the deep end
of a pool), in a film that seems bizarrely eager to establish a record for most
times characters attempt to kill themselves.
The initial near-death sequence sets the stage for the
twins’ reunion that’s by turns cathartic and messy, as warm and sentimental
memories mingle with painful and long-buried secrets. Meanwhile, the pair
continues a pattern of bad choices. Maggie has several dalliances with a hunky
Scuba instructor; while Milo, who is gay, looks up the sleazy, duplicitous
former English teacher he first met
while still a minor.
Wiig and especially Hader do a surprisingly good job playing
serious, but “The Skeleton Twins” is a mix of misery and mirth that awkwardly pinballs
between suicide and comedy, infidelity and whimsy. The result is a kind of
queasy comedy that’s at best disorienting and at worst disingenuous.
Still, it’s not without some highlights. The two best
and funniest scenes remind the viewer of the brand of short, sketch comedy that
Wiig and Hader excelled at on Saturday Night Live. In the first, Milo and
Maggie have a silly exchange after inhaling a few rounds of laughing gas at her
dental office; and in the second, they perform an impromptu lip-syncing to the
hopelessly infectious ‘80s pop tune “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” that’s as
cute as it is hilarious.
You’ll remember those moments long after forgetting
about the rest in “The Skeleton Twins.”
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