by Chelsea Regan | 9/12/2014
Reprint from Uinterview News
The Skeleton Twins, starring Saturday Night Live alums Kristin Wiig and Bill Hader, chronicles the reunion of dysfunctional twin siblings after a long estrangement.
Both Maggie (Wiig) and Milo (Hader), whose father committed suicide when they were teenagers, enter the film making their own suicide attempts. Before Maggie can swallow a bottle of pills, she gets a phone call informing her that her gay, aspiring actor brother is in the hospital in Los Angeles. She convinces him to come live with her and her husband – whom she’s cheating on – in suburban New York, where the two reconnect while wading through the muck they’ve created in their lives.
‘The Skeleton Twins’ Reviews
Impressed with Wiig and Hader’s dramatic acting chops, critics have praised The Skeleton Twins, directed by Craig Johnson from a screenplay he wrote with Mark Heyman. The talented actors give the somewhat formulaic plot of the film a level of authenticity with their easy chemistry while peppering it with their natural comedic abilities.
“Wiig and Hader make this work together through their tremendous chemistry–something you’d expect, given that they were longtime “Saturday Night Live” castmates and are good friends off-camera. But this movie asks a lot of them. It asks them to navigate territory that’s both funny and dramatic, light and raw, goofy and brutally honest. And they do it spectacularly. As we enter this season of big, important awards contenders that “matter,” “The Skeleton Twins” is a small, intimate gem that might truly matter.” – Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com.