Rating: R | Runtime: 113 minutes
Release Date: September 16th, 2022 (USA)
Studio: Focus Features
Director(s): Agnieszka Smoczynska
Writer(s): Andrea Seigel / Marjorie Wallace (book)

I think you might be a bad influence on each other.

I’m a big fan of Agnieszka Smoczynska’s The Lure and Fugue, so I welcomed the prospect of watching The Silent Twins. Unfortunately, while a fantastic stylistic work—music, animation, performances, etc.—I could never truly invest in the narrative of these real-life twins known for only communicating with each other. It’s as though the filmmakers pared a five-hour film down to two with so many emotional beats ringing hollow due to a consistent lack of context.

Andrea Seigel’s script is adapted from a book by Marjorie Wallace with the finished work finding inspiration from the real June and Jennifer Gibbons’ diaries, but it plays as less of a biography than a depiction of the sisters’ internal interpretation of their story. We’re therefore witnessing “effect” under the presumption that we already know “cause”.

So, perhaps it will make more sense for those familiar with the Gibbons’ lives before sitting down. I hope that’s the case since I found myself utterly lost as far as where the purpose of the exercise was concerned.

Because while it’s easy to parse the gist of what’s happening by juxtaposing how June (Letitia Wright) and Jennifer (Tamara Lawrance) interact with each other in a conjoined dreamscape populated by their dolls and how they don’t interact with the outside world (shutting down into a near catatonic state), it’s difficult to truly care about the disparity beyond the movie telling me I should. There’s no explanation for it. Brief snippets of them in school not complying with teachers arrive with zero change and a third of the film suddenly seems to say they’re beyond help.

Enter act two: the rebellious period. The sisters apparently share a fantasy of being famous writers (I say apparently since it never comes up until they buy a typewriter and start submitting works) and decide they must experience life to become good. It’s presented as more of a whim than life goal and they start getting into trouble with boys, drugs, and arson—eventually landing in an infamous mental hospital for act three.

We’re always at arm’s length, though. We’re watching from afar as they leap from one scenario to the next with little more than a jump cut. Characters come and go as pawns, one seemingly crucial figure (Jodhi May’s Majorie Wallace) earning the camera’s gaze despite us never having met her before (and not actually meeting her until a few more scenes pass).

There are some interesting psychological mysteries at play (the girls compulsively ensure that neither gets more or less of anything without the other’s permission, for example), but they are treated as window dressing rather than the point. Smoczynska and company obviously have their reasons for this, but I could never guess what they are.

So, every time it feels like we’re getting somewhere, we’re unceremoniously whisked away elsewhere to either watch their toxic jealousy risk causing real harm or their infinite wealth of empathy for the other threaten the same. It adds up to what should be a heartbreaking moment of unexplainable sacrifice and yet it plays as matter-of-factly sterile as the rest.

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(L to R) Tamara Lawrance stars as Jennifer Gibbons and Letitia Wright stars as June Gibbons in director Agnieszka Smoczynska’s THE SILENT TWINS, a Focus Features release. Credit: Courtesy of Lukasz Bak/Focus Features.