David Cronenberg’s brilliantly executed horror thriller, Dead Ringers, starring Jeremy Irons as swanky identical-twin gynecologists who specialize in treating women with fertility problems, taps into our collective paranoia over female anatomy.
Grade: A (***** out of *****)
Cronenberg merges a fixation on birth and feminine sexuality, showing scary gynecological tools aiming to show some of the worst things men can do.
Cronenberg was inspired by the real-life story of respected twin New York gynecologists Steven and Cyril Marcus, who in 1975 were found dead in their garbage-strewn Upper Esat Side apartment, a double suicide brought on by barbiturate addiction.
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Theatrical release poster
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Elliott and Beverly Mantle (both played by Irons) are introduced as brilliant gynecologists who open a state-of-the-art fertility clinic and share an opulent apartment. Though physically identical, the twins possess very different personalities. Elliott is a cad, suave, debonair, and self-confident to the point of being arrogant. In contrast, Beverly is shy, studious, and more sensitive. Elliott has always procured women for Beverly, seducing them first then turning them over to his shy sibling, unbeknownst to the women.
Trouble begins, when famous actress Claire Niveau (Genevieve Bujold) arrives at the clinic to take care of her infertility problem. Though they both share her physically, Beverly falls in love for the first time, driving a wedge between the brothers.
Unsettling, cold yet personal, “Dead Ringers” horrifies us as viewers, rather than shock us with spectacular displays of gore, such as the exploding heads in Cronenberg’s “Scanners,” or the gaping stomach cavities of “Videodrome.”
The film’s critical and commercial successes are based on its subject matter, raising disturbing questions about the nature of individual identity, and exploring issues of eroticism, narcissism, misogyny, and incest.
But they also rely on the impeccable execution, specifically the director’s precise mise-en-scene, astute command of color, decor, and camera movement. Cronenberg, then known for “The Fly” and other horror films made in Canada, directs the film with unparallel cool, and remarkable restraint.
During the past several years, Cronenberg has become a filmmaker of remarkable scope, able to convey his thematic concerns with his skills and crafts, without ever sacrificing his individual signature. In this richly textured film, the real horror lies in what connects, and disrupts, the minds of the two brothers.
Quietly devastating, Dead Ringers should be considered to be Cronenberg’s first masterpiece, the film that marks his entry into the pantheon of the century’s most provocative filmmakers.
The critic Gail Marcus sees “Dead Ringers” as the ultimate (and one might add nightmarish) film about the nuclear family, first depicted as charnel house, then as abattoir, a story of born winners who become born dead. Other critics see the film as a poignant satire of the medical profession in general and gynecology in particular, with doppelgangers and primitive torture instruments passing as medical tools.
A bravura performance by Jeremy Irons makes this gristly story as a chilling examination of masculine sexual anxiety and powerful critique of patriarchal control of the medical profession.
Irons tour-de-force performance deservedly earned him the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor, and Bujold received the Los Angeles Film Critics Best Supporting Actress Award.
Cronenberg’s seamless melding of split-screen techniques and body doubles won him Best Director honors from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.
End Note:
Despite rave critical response, the movie was not popular the box-office.
Credits
Running time: 115 minutes
Producers: David Cronenberg and Marc Boyman
Director: Cronenberg
Screenplay: Cronenberg and Norman Snider, based on book “Twins” by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland
Cinematography: Peter Suschitzky
Editing: Ronald Sanders
Music: Howard Shore
Production design: Carol Spier
F/X: Gordon Smith
Costumes: Denise Cronenberg
Distributed by 20th Century Fox (US)
Release dates: Sept 8, 1988 (TIFF); Sept 23, 1988 (US)
Running time: 115 minutes
Budget $13 million
Box office $14 million
Cast
Beverly Mantl/Elliott Mantle (Jeremy Irons)
Claire Niveau (Genevieve Bujold)
