X
- 1988
- R
- 1 h 56 m
- 1988
- R
- 1 h 56 m
Summary The chilling story of identical twin gynecologists--suave Elliot and sensitive Beverly, bipolar sides of one personality--who share the same practice, the same apartment, the same women. When a new patient, glamorous actress Claire Niveau, challenges their eerie bond, they descend into a whirlpool of sexual confusion, drugs, and madness....
Directed By: David Cronenberg
Written By: Norman Snider, Bari Wood, Jack Geasland, David Cronenberg
- 1988
- R
- 1 h 56 m
- 1988
- R
- 1 h 56 m
Dead Ringers
5.4
Where to Watch
Summary The chilling story of identical twin gynecologists--suave Elliot and sensitive Beverly, bipolar sides of one personality--who share the same practice, the same apartment, the same women. When a new patient, glamorous actress Claire Niveau, challenges their eerie bond, they descend into a whirlpool of sexual confusion, drugs, and madness....
Directed By: David Cronenberg
Written By: Norman Snider, Bari Wood, Jack Geasland, David Cronenberg
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 15 Critic Reviews
86
93% Positive
14 Reviews
14 Reviews
7% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 15 Critic Reviews
86
93% Positive
14 Reviews
14 Reviews
7% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
A masterpiece.
For those who enjoy cinematic visits to other, darker worlds, this blood's for you. Watching Ringers is not unlike watching a critical operation -- unnerving but also enthralling. [23 Sept 1988]
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 82 User Ratings
5.4
51% Positive
42 Ratings
42 Ratings
22% Mixed
18 Ratings
18 Ratings
27% Negative
22 Ratings
22 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 82 User Ratings
5.4
51% Positive
42 Ratings
42 Ratings
22% Mixed
18 Ratings
18 Ratings
27% Negative
22 Ratings
22 Ratings
Sheer brilliance. Deep down, EVERYONE has a love/hate thing about identical twins. On the one side, they wish they had that kind of communion with someone, that sort of magical intimacy they share, having someone basically the exact same as **** that same one-of-a-kind companionship is scary as hell.
I haven't seen, from my fellow Canadian, either 'Scanners' (1981) or 'Naked Lunch' (1991), so I can't honestly say whether or not my assertion can be thus extended, but I dare ANYONE to find in horror a finer run than Cronenberg had, in 'Videodrome', 'The Dead Zone', 'The **** this, 'Dead Ringers'.
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Directors of horror films or just weird movies in general tend to gravitate towards tales of identical or siamese twins. David Cronenberg is no different as he demonstrates in Dead Ringers. Based on a true story to a certain degree, the film tells the story of Beverly and Elliott Mantle (Jeremy Irons), twin gynecologists who often pretend to be one another, even with women such as actress Claire Niveau (Genevieve Bujold). Unfortunately for them, this "pretending" is really a manifestation of their affliction: they are siamese twins that are not connected. Their bodies and souls are one, even if their brains go elsewhere. As a result, one becoming addicted to drugs has a detrimental effect on the duo. Featuring class Cronenberg psychology and body horror, Dead Ringers is a creepy and unsettling film from beginning to end.
Featuring Jeremy Irons in a tremendous dual role, Dead Ringers explores the inner working of the mind of a twin who is unmistakably connected to their twin. Messing with their mind and interfering with their daily lives, this connection is one neither is truly aware of or able to cope with. Irons plays these two tormented souls drifting between the calm, cool, and collected nature of them initially during undergrad and when they begin their careers to when their twisted insides and mutant nature interferes on their daily lives and turns both into dying drug addicts who have lost their minds. Deeply psychological, Irons convincingly brings to life the fractured nature of these men's psyches and deftly shows the impact it has on their daily lives with Claire or any of their patients.
Cronenberg, for his part, never truly exploits the situation or the afflictions of his character. Rather, as he is prone to do, he explores the difference. The mutant nature and convoluted interiors of a siamese/identical twin is on full display here, as well as the mental torment it can cause for a person. In exploring this dark side of the human mind, Cronenberg naturally finds a lot of horror and effectively delivers scares to the audience via the torment the characters go through. Above all, his trademark body horror comes into play throughout and at the very end. Surgery and gynecology are a natural fit for Cronenberg, especially when the men believe they are looking at mutant women with weird insides. This paranoia and weird bit of body horror is vintage Cronenberg in how he has fun with messing up the human body and finding horror by making the audience's skin crawl as weird surgical tools are used in operation or people are cut open. The film is very visceral in this front as can be expected. It is also where much of the horror can be found, particularly with the violent psychological body horror finale when Beverly tries to separate them as conjoined twins, even though they are not actually conjoined.
Messed up, twisted, and classic Cronenberg, Dead Ringers may not be nearly as effective in creating scares or messing with one's mind as some of his best work, but it does succeed in creating a creepy atmosphere for Jeremy Irons to have terrific fun with. Irons is creepy, weird, and oddly charismatic in the role as the two twins, playing two distinctly different people who just happen to share a deep, deep connection. This atmosphere lends itself to the excellent character study, writing, and embracing of the more psychological and twisted elements brought forth by the film. Though perhaps not as great of a study of the mind as his later film Spider, the film still explores this unique mental illness to chilling effect, making up for its "lesser" character study with more effective scares and chills. Though hardly one of Croneberg's weirder films, Dead Ringers is oddly reserved for this period in his career and, aside from a few gross out scenes, is largely far more mental and less focused on absurd elements such as the underground. Instead, Dead Ringers is about the connection between twins seen through the eyes of a master of body horror. The end result is just as good as one could expect.
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An astonishing tour de force--especially for Irons, whose sense of nuance is so refined that one can tell in a matter of seconds which twin he is playing in a particular scene.
What makes the performance(s) even better is that Mr. Irons invests these bizarre, potentially freakish characters with so much intelligence and so much real feeling. [23 Sept 1988, p.C10]
At times Dead Ringers also tilts out of coherence, with scenes that are dramatically stillborn. But Irons is splendid in both roles, and Cronenberg can create tour-de-force tableaux with his effortless black magic. [26 Sept 1988]
The movie is really almost tasteful considering [Cronenberg’s] stomach-churning capacities. He always does it for a higher purpose, though, which is why his films sometimes win wider audiences. This one probably won't cross over, because it's too queasy. [23 Sept 1988]
Is this misogyny, as some insist, or a critique of misogyny, as others say? Many moviegoers, grossed out by the film's gothic approach to medical matters, won't watch long enough to find out which is the answer. [30 Sept 1988]
Cronenberg’s unsettling denuding of an identical twins’ inseparability wreaks controversy in its in-depth protrusion of psychiatric delusion and drug abuse, Jeremy Irons, plays the Mantle twins, both gynecologists and live together, even perversely share the same woman. Albeit their mirror-image resemblance, Beverly is the shy boffin while Elliot is the gregarious mouthpiece who is astute and dedicative in taking care of his younger brother’s every need, after meeting a sterile actress (Claire) who has a mutant ****, Beverly irrationally falls for her and slowly he becomes drug-addictive and paranoid (cause and effect), and even Elliot couldn’t rescue him, a finally unhinged Beverly slips into the abyss and tragedy is irrevocable.
Irons offers a tour-de-force engagement by splitting himself into two disparate roles, initially one wonders how could we tell them separately, and 5 minutes later, one will realize how distinguishable they are, Beverly is a meek soul, his life orbit is dominated and regulated by Elliot, who is sensible enough to admit they are an entity since neither of them could live without each other, nonetheless, the equilibrium has fatefully been violated by the interloper Claire, Bujold is feisty and emanates a of independence and vulnerability which fatally enchants Beverly and triggers his downhill of the separation procedure. The midstream of the film deals with the decomposition of Beverly’s mental stability has damped down by a slightly tedious script, which is wanting some explicable introductions to the mayhem it has caused, but the coda does save the pathos and it is mesmerizing and gives a **** punch to the gut.
Cronenberg’s films often leave me some bitter aftertaste, last year’s COSMOPOLIS (2012, 4/10) is beyond my interpretation, but DEAD RINGERS has its integral breakdown of a psychosexual drama, and fanboys will be exulted to indulge in Cronenberg’s signature chimerical shots (sundering the umbilical cord, the surgery ceremony in vermillion with a set of eerie apparatus) and there are magical contrivances to put two Jeremy Irons present in the same frames (deeming its pre-computer era), accolades should be also awarded to the film’s steadfast emotion liberation, which encroaches inches by inches into the subliminal conscious of its protagonists, a compelling piece of work rests higher on the shelf than Cronenberg’s other lesser creations.
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This was a very well-acted drama. What makes this film so good is the sheer quality of all of the actors in it. The story meanders as it follows the downfall of two socially rejected doctors. It is a little tough to watch at some points although always fascinating. Not very scary and not accompanied with the usual body shock that you would expect from David Cronenberg. This film is a solid piece of interest. If you want to watch a serious drama then this would be a good choice.
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I'm probably in the minority here, but I felt the bleak, intense, and all too gory "Dead Ringers" is too twisted for its own good. Cronenberg directs with style and it exemplifies his skill as a director, and Irons gives two, distinct and excellent characterizations, but all the gloominess makes it no fun.
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A ponderously slow moving thriller with no real plot. Nothing really happens until the end, and what does finally happen makes no sense. I think this movie got attention because Jeremy Irons played two roles and in 1988 it was a complex matter to double a person on screen; it also gave Jeremy irons about twice as much screen time as any other actor gets when in a leading role, so it was a big opportunity for him to show off his acting range. But simply as a movie to watch and enjoy for the story it tells, there is absolutely nothing here to see. Life is short. Give this a pass.
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Awards
Genie Awards
• 11 Wins & 13 Nominations
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA
• 5 Nominations
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards
• 2 Wins & 3 Nominations
