The Skeleton Twins

2014 drama

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Twins who haven't spoken to each other in ten years reunite after both attempted or contemplated suicide on the same day. They deal with past losses and their current failures as they try to put their relationship back together again.

I haven't watched Saturday Night Live in a long time, so I don't know which hilarious skit these characters are based on. This is listed as a comedy-drama, but the emphasis is definitely on the drama part of that. This is a movie featuring depression, the loss of a parent, attempted suicide, alcohol abuse, the death of fish, adultery, disintegrating marriage, statutory rape, and adults dealing with adulthood after having terrible parents. If you think any of those are hilarious, then you might think this is funnier than I thought it was. This movie's really bleak, and although both SNL veterans (from seasons I didn't see at all) give very good performances, neither of them are really funny at all, save for a scene when they're apparently given a chance to improvise in a dentist's office. I can't remember anything I've seen where Hader has a significant role, but I liked what he did here. His character's awfully mopey, but he pays homosexual naturally enough and without any flamboyance that some of his SNL cohorts might have been tempted to have. And I can't remember anything I didn't dislike Kristen Wiig in. I used to think she was very attractive, but that's only because I thought she was absurdly tall. Now that I know she's only 5'5", I've lost interest. Their characters are interesting to me because there was part of me who just wanted to dislike both of them. They're flawed human beings, and they know they're flawed yet insist--possibly because they're fighting against various sicknesses and troubled pasts--on continuing to be flawed. The film's bleakness is the result of knowing early on in this movie that things would more than likely not end up happily for either of them. The suddenly-ubiquitous Ty Burrell and Luke Wilson are also good, and Wilson's easily the most likable character in this entire thing. Monty Hall's daughter is good in the single scene--an important scene as the twins' mother. Initially, I hated the way this movie ended, but the more I think about it, the more I suspect it's supposed to be a little ambiguous. And my favorite kinds of endings are ambiguous ones. This is a good movie, but you need to be warned that it's not a fun movie at all. Josh recommended it to me.