The Skeleton Twins

One of the better movies to come along this year.

What raises the movie above the herd and rocks our settled ideas of pop entertainment is the way Hader and Wiig resist the script's pull to tidy things up.

The Skeleton Twins is a well-written and acted movie about contemporary life that doesn’t strain for melodrama and is largely devoid of weepy soap opera theatrics. A small, precise, character-driven vignette, it has no pretensions to make any kind of grand statement about The Way We Live Now.

If a movie with suicide as a central theme can be deemed funny, then writer/director Craig Johnson has pulled it off, mixing heartache and humor and giving Wiig, especially, the opportunity to shine.

Judging by Johnson's previous feature, "True Adolescence," he's better at crafting characters with credible problems than finding equally credible ways of exploring them. Fortunately, in the case of Skeleton Twins, the actors do the legwork.

Skeleton Twins may not be a wholly fleshed-out character study, and nobody here takes a flying leap out of his or her comfort zone. But the timing of this tale of depression, suicide and how vulnerable we all are to our past, our demons and our shortcomings, is enough to recommend this engagingly melancholy comedy.

The Skeleton Twins has a pair of terrific, sharply etched lead performances, a polished, autumnal look, and some affecting moments where its protagonists bond. But to borrow a water-based metaphor from the film’s overflowing stock of them, The Skeleton Twins just lies there, cold and clammy, like a dead fish.

This was an outstanding blend of comedy and drama, something that is always very difficult to pull off. And the acting was spectacular. You could really feel the chemistry that probably stems from their SNL days.

crooked childhood, troubled twins.. A Skeleton Twins A fascinating uptake with a newer perspective on dysfunctional family drama through a siblings' vision, is a smarter way to create a light but a deeply intense feature. The writing is smart, grippingly and thoroughly entertaining except for an issue on the structure of the script that follows a rudimentary process which undermines the feature as it grows predictable as it ages on screen. Craig Johnson; the screenwriter and the director, has done a marvellous work on executing the anticipated vision on screen along with amazing visuals as it is shot beautifully too. The performance by both the lead actors is stupendous but the highlight of it would be Kirsten Wiig who is the real game changer in here. Bill Hader and Kirsten Wiig's chemistry is the crucial point in here as all the connections and conversations among the "siblings" should come off believable and fortunately they are convincing too. Despite of raising fragile and dark topics, the feature is light and breezy for the most part of it which shows the awareness of the makers, as the core relation projected in here is of twins. A Skeleton Twins has a crooked childhood, troubled twins and justifying actions occurring on screen throughout its almost 90 minutes that is utterly palpable to its tone.

This movie has some very strong acting, however it kind of meanders. The script seems to be forced and the directing is less than magnetic. It's weird to see Wiig and Hader play such serious roles, and even though it has lots of humor, it just misses the mark for me.

less depressing than it seems like it will be... still....very depressing....interesting how they dressed as eachother and interesting how the luke wilson didn't think girls pooped...I'm convinced their poop is white and **** television....trying to overpopulate us all...inflation is not necessary...

“The Skeleton Twins” opens with one person attempting suicide, another on the verge of tempting suicide and a third already having accomplished suicide. This doesn’t quite mesh with expectations that with Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig and Ty Burrell starring and the coming attractions showing 2 possibly funny scenes, about a half a dozen funny lines and one lip synch scene, that it is a comedy. By the way the funny lines and funny scenes are really about all the comedy you are going to get. Milo (Hader) and Maggie (Wiig) are twins who have not seen each other or communicated for a decade and after his suicide attempt she flies out to California where he supposedly is an actor but is really a waiter--one of the many clichés in the film--and all of a sudden they are driving (?) back to her home in New York where she lives with her husband Lance (Luke Wilson). They are, supposedly, being very active in trying to have a child though Maggie is secretly taking birth control pills and has not been exactly faithful to her husband which leads to Milo saying “I can’t wait to be the creepy gay uncle.” Talking about creepy it turns out that Rich (Burrell) who was Milo’s English teacher, and now owns a bookstore, had seduced Milo when he was 15. There was going to be a huge scandal but something Maggie did--I have no idea--is what stopped that and when the twins fall out. Rich is now living with his girlfriend and his son--the latter isn’t explained--and Milo wants to reconnect with him. Maggie starts an affair with her scuba diving instructor, (Boyd Holbrook) and she meets an old schoolmate, Carlie, (Kathleen Rose) who has an obnoxious, bratty son. Talk about obnoxious, like most films today, especially with “Saturday Night Live” actors, there is a farting scene. Are you laughing yet? Also, like most films today, there has to be a sex scene. Along with the obnoxious scene there is a complete waste of time scene with Judy (Joanna Gleason) as the mother of the twins as if to explain why the twins aren’t ‘happy’. The screenplay by Craig Johnson and Mark Heyman, like the direction by Craig Johnson, is all over the place. In addition they have too many gay clichés coming out of Milo’s mouth like “Look at me, another gay cliché,” after he attempts suicide. Afterwards after overhearing my comment about the film to the manager, said that Wiig and Hader will probably draw their SNL fans. I don’t remember the last time I saw SNL but as actors who can handle drama and comedy they both do an excellent job, as does Wilson, though Burrell’s role is too hazy and unexplained for him to do anything with it except for his last scene, another gay cliché! Oh my comment to the manager? It wasn’t a bad film but a very boring one!