''Dead Ringers'' is a 1988
psychological thriller film starring
Jeremy Irons in a dual role as identical twin gynecologists.
David Cronenberg
David Paul Cronenberg (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror genre, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation ...
directed and co-wrote the screenplay with
Norman Snider
Norman Snider (November 14, 1945 – January 4, 2019) was a Canadian screenwriter.
Credits
*'' Partners'' (1976)
*'' Dead Ringers'' (1988)
*'' Body Parts'' (1991)
*'' Rated X'' (2000)
*'' Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss'' (2004)
*''Ca ...
. Their script was based on the lives of
Stewart and Cyril Marcus and on the novel ''Twins'' by
Bari Wood
Bari Wood (born December 31, 1936) is an American author of science fiction, crime and horror novels.
Life and work
Wood was born in 1936 in Jacksonville, Illinois, the daughter of Israel S. Prosterman and Gertrude Ritman. She grew up in and aro ...
and Jack Geasland, a "highly fictionalized" version of the
Marcuses' story.
The film won numerous honors, including for Irons' performance, and 10
Genie Awards, notably
Best Motion Picture.
Toronto International Film Festival critics have ranked it among the
Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time.
Plot
Twins Elliot and Beverly Mantle are
gynecologists who jointly operate a highly successful clinical practice in
Toronto that specializes in treating fertility problems. Elliot, the more confident and cynical of the two, seduces women who come to the Mantle Clinic. When he tires of them, the women are passed on to the shy and passive Beverly while the women remain unaware of the substitution.
Actress Claire Niveau comes to the clinic for her infertility where it turns out that she has a "trifurcated
cervix
The cervix or cervix uteri (Latin, 'neck of the uterus') is the lower part of the uterus (womb) in the human female reproductive system. The cervix is usually 2 to 3 cm long (~1 inch) and roughly cylindrical in shape, which changes during ...
", meaning she probably will be unable to have children. Elliot seduces Claire and then urges Beverly to sleep with her. Beverly becomes emotionally attached to Claire, and this upsets the equilibrium between the twins. Beverly also begins sharing Claire's
abuse of prescription drugs which he abets through his doctor's authority. When Claire learns that Elliot has been taking sexual advantage of her by impersonating Beverly, she is angry and confronts them both in a restaurant but later decides to continue a relationship with Beverly exclusively.
Eventually, Claire leaves town to work on another film, sending Beverly into
clinical depression, more prescription drug abuse and paranoid
delusions
A delusion is a false fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, hallucination, or some o ...
about "mutant women" with abnormal genitalia. Beverly seeks out
metallurgical artist Anders Wolleck and commissions a set of bizarre "gynecological instruments" for operating on these mutant women. Beverly prepares to operate on a patient during surgery with one of Wolleck's tools, while his shocked surgical team exchanges horrified glances. Before he can proceed, the drug-addled doctor drops one of the tools on the ground and then collapses atop the patient, and begins to inhale from her gas mask. Both brothers are immediately suspended from practice and put on administrative leave by the hospital board.
With their medical careers now ruined, Elliot locks Beverly inside the clinic and tries to clean him up, taking pills himself in order to "synchronize" with Beverly. When Claire returns, Beverly leaves the clinic to be with her. After recovering his sobriety, he returns to the clinic which he finds it in shambles and Elliot despondent and intoxicated. Their positions have become reversed as Beverly cares for Elliot. Drugged and despairing, they celebrate their mock birthday and Elliot volunteers to be killed so as to “separate the
Siamese twins" and allow Beverly to live his own life. Beverly disembowels Elliot on an examination table with the same claw-like instrument of Wolleck's that he planned to use on his patient in the operating room.
The next morning, Beverly awakens and sees that he killed Elliot during their drug-induced delirium. Devastated, he pulls himself together, leaves the clinic and calls Claire on a pay phone. When she asks "Who is this?" Beverly silently leaves the phone, walks back into the clinic and dies (implicitly from drug withdrawal) in Elliot's dead arms.
Cast
Production
Although ''Dead Ringers'' closely follows the case of
Stewart and Cyril Marcus, director
Peter Greenaway claims that Cronenberg queried him about his film ''
A Zed & Two Noughts'' for two hours before going on to make ''Dead Ringers'' eight months later.
In his
DVD commentary, Irons claims that
Robert De Niro
Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. ( , ; born August 17, 1943) is an American actor. Known for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese, he is considered to be one of the best actors of his generation. De Niro is the recipient of various accolades ...
declined playing the Mantles due to his unease with the subject matter and portraying gynecologists, while
William Hurt decided to reject the parts because "it is hard enough to play one role".
This movie marked the screen debut of actress
Jill Hennessy and her twin sister
Jacqueline, who play
call girls in one scene of the film.
Irons was given two different dressing rooms with two sets of costumes for playing his two characters. However, given the fact that he said "the whole point of the story is you should sometimes be confused as to which is which", he chose to use only one of the rooms and combine different costume items intended for different characters. Irons also developed an "internal way" to portray each character, employing the
Alexander technique for "different energy points", giving each character his own appearance.
A second dream scene was also shot which featured a parasitic twin emerging from Beverly's stomach but this sequence was not used in the final cut.
Adaptation as television series
On August 18, 2020,
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video, also known simply as Prime Video, is an American Video on demand#Subscription models, subscription video on-demand Over-the-top media service, over-the-top Streaming media, streaming and Renting, rental service of Amazon (c ...
gave a straight-to-series order with
Rachel Weisz set to star. On July 22, 2021,
Michael Chernus joined the starring cast. On August 2, 2021,
Poppy Liu
Poppy Liu (柳波; pinyin: Liǔ Bō) is a Chinese actress, activist and poet, known for her roles in the sitcoms '' Sunnyside'', '' Hacks'', and '' iCarly''.
Early life and education
Liu was born in Xi'an, China. Her family moved to Minnesota ...
was cast in a main role.
Reception
On review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 84% based on 43 reviews, and an average rating of 7.70/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "''Dead Ringers'' serves up a double dose of Jeremy Irons in service of a devilishly unsettling concept and commandingly creepy work from director David Cronenberg." According to the review aggregator Metacritic, the film received a weighted score of 86 out of 100 indicating “universal acclaim.”
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
gave the film two and a half stars, writing "it's like a collaboration between med school and a supermarket tabloid", and said it was challenging but interesting for his female friends to view. Ebert also credited Irons for making each twin unique. ''
Variety'' said Irons portrayed his characters with skill. In ''
The Washington Post'',
Desson Howe assessed it as "unnerving but also enthralling". For the same paper, Rita Kempley called it "every woman's nightmare turned into a creepy thriller", adding it was "like slowing down to look at a traffic accident, afraid you might see something. It's really sordid stuff that becomes ridiculous, painful, unbelievable and tedious".
It is the favorite Cronenberg film of Korean director
Chan-wook Park
Park Chan-wook ( ; born 23 August 1963) is a South Korean film director, screenwriter, producer, and former film critic. He is considered as one of the most prominent filmmakers of South Korean cinema as well as world cinema in 21st century. ...
and was voted for in the 2002 ''
Sight & Sound'' poll by Lalitha Gopalan. In 1999, ''
Rolling Stone'' listed ''Dead Ringers'' as 95th on their list of "100 Maverick Movies". ''
Total Film'' placed ''Dead Ringers'' 35th on their list of the "50 Greatest Horror Movies of All Time" while ''
Entertainment Weekly'' placed it 20th on their list of "The 25 scariest movies of all time". It was named one of "The Top 10 'True-Story' Horror Movies of All-time!" by
Bloody Disgusting
Bloody Disgusting is an American multi-media company, which began as a horror genre-focused news site/website specializing in information services that covered various horror medias, including: film, television, video games, comics, and music. ...
.
In 1993, the
Toronto International Film Festival Group compiled a
Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time list, with festival director Piers Handling writing a lack of Cronenberg films was significant, and that ''Dead Ringers'' and ''
Videodrome'' divided voters, causing neither to win a place on the list. ''Dead Ringers'' afterwards ranked sixth in the 2004 update,
and seventh in 2015.
Box office
The film grossed $8 million in the United States and Canada. Internationally it grossed $6 million for a worldwide total of $14 million.
Accolades
Irons won critics groups' Best Actor awards for ''Dead Ringers'', and when he won the
Academy Award for Best Actor
The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. The ...
in 1991 for ''
Reversal of Fortune
''Reversal of Fortune'' is a 1990 American drama film adapted from the 1985 book ''Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case'', written by law professor Alan Dershowitz. It recounts the true story of the unexplained coma of socialite Sunny ...
'', he thanked Cronenberg in his acceptance speech.
See also
*
Look-alike
A look-alike, double, or doppelgänger is a person who bears a strong physical resemblance to another person, excluding cases like twins and other instances of family resemblance.
Some look-alikes have been notable individuals in their own right, ...
References
External links
*
*
*
*
''Dead Ringers''an essay by Chris Rodley at the
Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dead Ringers (Film)
1988 films
1988 thriller films
1980s psychological thriller films
1980s thriller drama films
20th Century Fox films
American thriller films
American psychological films
American psychological drama films
American psychological thriller films
American thriller drama films
Canadian body horror films
Canadian psychological drama films
Canadian thriller films
Canadian psychological thriller films
English-language Canadian films
1980s English-language films
Films about sexuality
Films about twin brothers
Films directed by David Cronenberg
Films scored by Howard Shore
Films set in Toronto
Films shot in Toronto
American drama films
Twins in fiction
Best Picture Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners
Medical-themed films
Morgan Creek Productions films
1988 drama films
1980s American films
1980s Canadian films