The Silent Twins
Identical twin sisters inhabit a singular private world in one of the year’s most original and arresting true-life dramas.
Only their mother could tell them apart: Tamara Lawrance and Letitia Wright
The silent twins were not always tongue-tied. At the start of Agnieszka Smoczyńska's startling film, the young girls even read the cast list out loud, which is a shock. But then The Silent Twins, a Polish-British co-production, is nothing if not unconventional. Based on the writings, musings and poems of June and Jennifer Gibbons, it plunges head-first into a strange, sacred world drawn from the singular lives of these unique, disturbed, creative beings, cursed by their co-dependence. Their world is made even more alien for being set in a nondescript, snowbound corner of Wales, filmed in Poland. Here, silent family dinners are punctuated by lively puppet shows which evolve into stop-motion animated tableaux.
Like the girls’ parents, emigrees from Barbados, we have no idea where June and Jennifer will lead us, as a pragmatic, grown-up world encroaches on the security of their own fiercely private island. Theirs is a life of inimitable intimacy and flights of fantasy in which they can second-guess their own mood swings and needs. We, the audience, are less privy, so Smoczyńska and her scriptwriter Andrea Seigel spin a tale of such imagination and uniqueness – intercut with the raw reality of the outside world – that the journey is almost hallucinogenic. Indeed, one scene is almost literally so, which would explain the 18 certificate, while the girls’ sexual maturation builds a genuine erotic frisson. As Smoczyńska knows, it’s not what is beneath the clothing that is sexy, but the way the clothing is divested.
In keeping with the twins’ mindset – think of the make-believe world in Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures – the scene will switch from domestic trauma to a Busby Berkeley dance routine. Photographs will dance within their frames and captions appear on cigarettes. An interesting creative choice is to cast Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance as the older June and Jennifer, just as their personalities begin to diverge. And because Mses Wright and Lawrance bear little resemblance to each other, it becomes easier to follow their separate paths. Following her turns in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Aisha, this truly is the year of Letitia Wright, although the true star of the film is Agnieszka Smoczyńska, who exhibits an exceptionally original vision, wriggling her way beneath the twins’ psychological thicket. Breaking the conventions of traditional narrative, and armed with a haunting score from Marcin Macuk and Zuzanna Wronska, she has forged a distinctive and unforgettable experience.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Letitia Wright, Tamara Lawrance, Nadine Marshall, Treva Etienne, Michael Smiley, Jodhi May, Leah Mondesir-Simmonds, Eva-Arianna Baxter, Jack Bandeira, Miles Jupp.
Dir Agnieszka Smoczyńska, Pro Klaudia Smieja-Rostworowska, Ewa Puszczyńska, Ben Pugh, Joshua Horsfield, Anita Gou, Alicia van Couvering and Letitia Wright, Ex Pro Tamara Lawrance, Screenplay Andrea Seigel, Ph Jakub Kijowski, Pro Des Jagna Dobesz, Ed Agnieszka Glinska, Music Marcin Macuk and Zuzanna Wronska, Costumes Katarzyna Lewinska, Dialect coach Hazel Holder.
Madants/Extreme Emotions/42/30WEST/Canal+/Kindred Spirit/Polish Film Institute/Cofiloisir-Universal Pictures.
113 mins. UK/Poland. 2022. US Rel: 16 September 2022. UK Rel: 9 December 2022. Cert. 18.
