When films bill themselves as being “based on a true story,” there is an understanding that there will be at least some fidelity to truth. What director Agnieszka Smoczynska does with The Silent Twins is hold that concept up to the light and filter it through the perception of the two characters at its center. It attempts to both trace the tragic story of its characters and come to understand them along the way via a more multifaceted presentation. This creates an experience that is at its best when its refractions make for stunning sequences that represent their imagination and vision as a way of ensuring they have more of a voice in their own story. At times making use of stop-motion animation and at others more dreamlike imagery, they are regrettably fleeing yet no less beautiful to behold. It often lacks depth, but still has flashes of brilliance that shine through.
The film is based on the life of twins June (Letitia Wright) and Jennifer (Tamara Lawrance) Gibbons who gained the name of the title as they increasingly only communicated with each other. An opening sequence hears them being playful and happy together, expressed via vibrant colors paired with joyous music. When we see them from the outside, the moment is shattered and a more dreary color palette suddenly surrounds them. It is the first indication of the film’s shifting cinematic impulses as it explores the creativity bursting within the sisters’ minds that it juxtaposes against the brutality they get subjected to. The abundance of all that is harrowing and horrifying in their suffering is made all the more so when it smothers the spellbinding visions that we catch glimpses of. As they spend more time alone, the film creates an awe that is rather arresting. It is something it ought to have more fully embraced.
Living in 1970s Wales, much of the isolation stems from how they were targeted as the only Black children in the community after their family immigrated there. This is something the film acknowledges briefly though mostly skims past without tackling it in any real depth, an omission that opens it up early to criticisms of it being potentially an obfuscation. Showing the world through the sisters’ eyes as they keep closed off from almost everything around them, it doesn’t spend much time lingering on their early years as it pushes forward into the poetic and painful future they’ll face down themselves. This is felt in how they explore their own sense of self-expression, making for a journey that can be both mesmerizing and meandering. To call it a biopic would be a mistake as it avoids falling into the many traps of the genre and instead charts its own path. While it falls into many of its own creations, especially when it isn’t leaning into the more distinct imagery, there is still much to appreciate in its approach.
The way their writing was a way for them to communicate is something that ensures they were not ever truly silent. It almost turns the title into a tragic misnomer that speaks more to how the world perceived them. Sure, they didn’t speak in the way they were expected to and often faced serious scrutiny and consequences for doing so. However, it soon becomes clear that they were anything but silent. Their perspective was something they expressed through prose, their ideas taking on striking stories that went largely overlooked at the time. Smoczynska sets out to bring these stories to life, weaving them into the film at every opportunity she can. One particular scene involving soda is unexpected yet unique in such a way that you want to swallow up every moment of it.
For all the darkness at the heart of the narrative, the way these more fanciful moments take hold of you is similarly crucial. They provide visual representations of a small sliver of what the sisters were thinking about and working on. While perceived as being passive, the film sets out to deconstruct this image and portray them as being more than how the world saw them. There are certainly external characters looking in, including their family who often isn’t sure what to do, but the focus is always on feeling what they feel. This can be rather dire, especially when it shifts into when they are institutionalized. What can’t be denied is how committed the film is to placing us with the two sisters fully and completely. We inhabit the world with them, getting to know them through less conventional storytelling means.
This will likely leave some feeling like there was less characterization than one would have hoped for with a film like this. In making it more of an experiential work, much of the details of their story can get lost. There are even moments where, absent the changing of the cast, time is hard to fully pin down. While a bit disorienting, it creates a unique impact that makes it feel as though the years are blending together and the future is bearing on the two sisters. Both Wright and Lawrance give performances that eschew what could have easily become caricatures to be more compassionate. Their work helps to fill in some gaps even as there is much that still feels like it is missing. It ends up becoming a film that is in tension with itself, revealing interesting contradictions even as much doesn’t fully connect. In particular, much of the conclusion seems to gloss over any residual complications or open questions to instead wrap things up rather quickly. It leaves an underlying feeling that there was still much left to understand about them that was lost to all of the systemic failures.
Perhaps this is by design as a way of showing how this was always inevitable when many of the people around them didn’t care to even try to listen to them and instead pushed them to the side rather than support them. Whether this is being too generous is a worthwhile conversation to be had, though the fact that the film provides much to reflect on is worth praising in its own right. Even with its many narrative flaws, The Silent Twins gives us an insight into not just the lives of the two sisters but the way they made sense of it through stories of their own.
Rating: B-
The Silent Twins is now in theaters.