"Skeleton Twins" Both Grim and Comedic

On the surface, Craig Johnson’s “The Skeleton Twins” is a mess of different things: twins, twin suicide attempts, farting, Halloween costumes, adultery, and scuba diving. The lead actors, Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, were SNL costars. Yet the mood of the camera inclines to the tragic. It’s a movie whose unconventional range of content and emotions can leave viewers unsure of whether they should be crying, laughing, or straightening diligently in their seats to assume a contemplative pose. The one thing they’ll probably all feel is unsettled—because at its heart this film is really an accomplished, nuanced study of claustrophobia.

The reigning element on-screen is water. Or, more precisely, enclosed bodies of water: pools, tubs, and fishtanks. Adult twins Maggie (Wiig) and Milo (Hader) and Maggie’s pet goldfish spend most of their time submerged in these deceptively transparent containers, echoing those famous aquatic motifs from “The Graduate.” Like pool-bound Benjamin Braddock, the twins are stuck in lives they didn’t want. Milo is a failed actor coming home from L.A., and has just tried committed suicide in a bathtub at the start of the movie. At home, emotionally unstable Maggie appears slightly better off. She’s got a respectable dental hygienist job and the archetypal nice guy husband, Lance (Luke Wilson). She’s so happy with life in their quiet New York town, she’s already cheated twice since marrying Lance and is about to down a load of pills when a call about Milo’s attempt pulls her back up from the deep.

But Maggie will continue to put her head underwater—taking scuba diving lessons, taking things too far with the seductive scuba instructor (Boyd Holbrook), and taking long baths afterward as if to wash off her shame. Correspondingly, Milo will undergo further humiliations and rejections that tempt him again to “check out,” in the twins’ lingo. Not even the illusion of escape granted young Benjamin Braddock is allowed these two in Johnson’s film: both are firmly buckled into middle age. They’re visually subjected to even more claustrophobic conditions than those in “The Graduate.” Almost every shot is uncomfortably zoomed-in on the actors, who are framed in sharp focus against the blurred presence of lights, other people in the background, Northeastern autumn leaves, and, of course, the water. Even waterless settings in cars or bars are similarly cramped for space. The only hope someone can have, in a world this stifling, is the comforting presence of a kindred spirit.

Though Maggie and Milo haven’t talked in 10 years, their unique connection and understanding from childhood make each the only one who can truly help the other now. Wiig and Hader demonstrate exceptional talent in their roles, though there are a couple of moments near the end where Wiig, smashing things in despair, risks melodrama. Together, they truly feel like a brother and sister with an intimate history.

The twins have one indisputably great scene in the film. Milo puts on a dramatic oldies song, Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.” He begins slowly dancing and mouths the words flirtatiously, beckoning with a come-hither motion to Maggie, who is lying on the couch in a rut. Maggie rolls her eyes, but the performance is so amusing, the melody so buoyant and infectious, that little by little she joins in. At the climax of the song—“HEY!”—they are energetically lip-syncing the lyrics, having the time of their lives, karate-style kicking their feet in the air and forgetting their adult anxieties.

What is it about this moment that feels so special, so absolutely magical? Part of it must be the way it pops out of the rest of the movie. In general, Johnson’s work can feel labored. His ichthyological symbolism, growing excessive, will try one’s patience, and the plot structuring can be frustratingly neat. But the film’s overall compositional tightness and bleakness also provide the perfect atmosphere of repression for this kind of scene to joyfully explode. This is one glorious moment of human triumph over restraints. Seeing it can be a vicarious victory for the audience, like watching Rocky run up to the top of the Philadelphia steps.

There are a lot of dissonant notes in “The Skeleton Twins,” but at some point the film, like its troubled characters, does begin to achieve a difficult harmony. Sure, the darkness and the questions will return after Maggie and Milo have finished their lip-sync duet. This is not a world where problems vanish with a cheery song. But something has been broken through for good. Johnson’s film tells how we all hide ourselves, how we drown in ourselves. Then it suggests how, by sharing our burdens in mutual sympathy and good humor, we just may have the chance to keep each other afloat.

—Staff writer Victoria Zhuang can be reached at victoria.zhuang@thecrimson.com.