The Silent Twins

I can't believe that the IMDb rating is so low on this film, I think it will become a cult classic in a few years. The two young girls in this were amazing. The way they got across how these girls invested their time in this secrecy blanket - to keep themselves same from a White supremacy world full of prejudice and hate, they were truly the masters of their fate. No matter how hard others push and poke and press, they did not crack - they are an icon for resistance.

In a world that they created to hide and shelter, each other - my tears poured down.

What an incredible piece of filmmaking and the two older Gibbon's girl/women were outstanding leads and these two incredible actors deserved the BAFTA's they received. For me, the director did a fantastic job, which was really quite poetic. I was very engaged with this presentation and the interpretation of the twins lives, which used their own creativity, this is truly an inspiring film and needs more love than its currently getting.

I am an identical twin. Understanding them was easy. I felt that bond as a child. The language they created, the words they conveyed to one another without speaking, the worlds they lived in, and the metaphorical dance they endlessly performed was something my twin and I had. The difference was that we grew out of that special closeness, the bubble that we inhabited eventually popped. The film takes us on a similar journey, flawlessly, as if the twins produced it themselves. The direction, script, acting, costumes, art direction, score, and cinematography all masterfully come together to recreate their perfectly delicate and complicated twin-dom. This is a brilliant film, a delicious character study that will touch you deeply... if you let it.

This is a film that deserves the screen time however it leaves you with too many questions if you aren't already familiar with the real life tradgedy that this was. The identical twin sisters had a heavy accent from there culture that they were shunned and made out to be a circus act in a predominantly white school. They basically could not fit in and in the middle and end so many people were able to study, dissect, and write books based on them to profit off the fact that if they had just been treated with an ounce of dignity for speech classes as children their entire lives would have been different.

Greetings again from the darkness. Twins often have their own language or way of communicating. However, sisters June and Jennifer Gibbons of Wales took this to a new level, creating a mysterious dark connection that no one else every understood. Andrea Siegel has adapted the screenplay from Marjorie Wallace's book, and Polish director Agnieszka Smoczynska (THE LURE 2015) delivers the style and creep factor, while missing out on answering the questions raised with the story.

The young sisters are seen giving a fake radio broadcast, and we get a glimpse of their awkward behavior during childhood ... behavior that left their parents and siblings feeling helpless. Letitia Wright (BLACK PANTHER, 2018) and Tamara Lawrance (KINDRED, 2020) take over as teenage June and Jennifer, respectively. While the young ones are well cast, it's the work of Ms. Wright and Ms. Lawrance that keep this one watchable despite the meandering. The awkward behavior of adolescents evolves into bizarre behavior of teens, and ultimately criminal behavior and some type of mental illness.

Pure elation of a new typewriter is all too quickly erased by irritation and anger that leads to fighting, or worse. Director Smoczynska does well to use stop motion animation periodically in helping to explain what's happening with the two girls. Child psychologists have no luck breaking through and the sisters are ultimately separated and locked away at Broadmoor psychiatric hospital by age 19. By this time, it's difficult not to view them as psychopaths.

It's interesting to watch as these two survive on the fringes of society in near mental isolation, and use writing as a creative outlet to unleash their inner thoughts. We never really know if we should have empathy for the girls, and that becomes even more difficult given their later behavior. Journalist Marjorie Wallace (played here by Jodhi May) documented her interactions with the sisters, but we can't help but wonder if this story is better told in documentary form - despite the strong work from Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance.

Opens in theaters on September 16, 2022.

In a world that's alien and quite distressed, two girls decide how their time will invest, shunning prejudice and hate, they are the masters of their fate, no matter how hard others push and poke and press. In a world that they create to hide and shelter, they're each other's guardian, trustee, curator; but fighting against the tide, just brings torrents that collide, with the damage acting as a separator.

What an incredible piece of filmmaking with two outstanding leads by two incredible actors. For me, I'm happy for the director to have used some poetic licence, if I want the facts verbatim I'll watch a documentary or read a biography, but I'm a lot more engaged with a presentation that allows some interpretation and inspires me to investigate further. Those two performances are top drawer!