Dead Ringers (1988)

No, it’s not the impressionists comedy sketch show with Jon Culshaw, the Dead Ringers I watched recently is a creepy, psychological drama/thriller from David Cronenberg. It stars Jeremy Irons as identical twin gynaecologists Elliot and Beverly Mantle. Elliot is the pushy, confident one, with a bit of a sadistic streak, and Beverly is the strangely-named, quieter one, the one who ends up falling for Genevieve Bujold’s actress character, Claire.

The brothers are inseparable, and share their work and women, often posing as the other so that both can enjoy the good life. Elliot boasts that Beverly only ever experiences what Elliot has experienced first. When Beverly becomes more attached to Claire, and wants her for himself, it of course goes on to affect his filial relationship with Elliot. Once Claire catches on that she’s being ‘serviced’ by both brothers, she’s not happy, but Beverly wins her round. There follows a dissent into drug-induced madness from Beverly when he believes that Claire is cheating on him, and in typical Cronenberg style, there are some lurid dream sequences of conjoined twins, and an ending that is bloody and inevitable.

This movie was a good deal more creepy than Eastern Promises, the last Cronenberg I watched – incidentally, I’ve now seen a fair proportion of his output, with A History of Violence (2005), eXistenZ (1999), Spider (2002), Crash (1996), and The Fly (1986) all proving suitably weird (and Crash just being plain crap). I’ve still got The Dead Zone (1983) on the shelf ready to watch too. I like the unsettling style of this director, and Dead Ringers is an effective part of his oeuvre. Jeremy Irons puts on a masterful dual performance, making it clear which brother he is through subtle treatments, although you’re not always sure you know which is which. I look forward to catching more of Cronenberg’s back catalogue when I can.