Dead Ringers is a 1988 psychological horror film starring Jeremy Irons in a dual role as identical twin gynecologists. Director David Cronenberg co-wrote the screenplay with Norman Snider; their script was based on the novel Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland. The film draws on elements from Peter Greenaway's A Zed and Two Noughts^[1] and is very loosely based on the lives of Stewart and Cyril Marcus.^[2]

Synopsis

Elliot and Beverly Mantle are identical twins and highly successful gynecologists. Elliot, the more aggressive and confident 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, remaining unaware of the substitution.

When Beverly becomes attached to the troubled actress Claire Niveau (Geneviève Bujold), it upsets the equilibrium between the twins. It turns out that Niveau is a trifurcate; she has an abnormal reproductive system. Beverly describes her internal arrangement as having "three doorways" and probably won't be able to have children. Beverly tells Niveau that her condition is "fabulously rare."

Beverly mistakes Claire's male assistant for her lover, and comes to believe that she's cheating on him. This sends him into clinical depression, prescription drug abuse and delusions about "mutant women" with abnormal genitalia. Beverly seeks out a metallurgist and he constructs a set of bizarre gynecological instruments for working on these mutant women, even using them once on a real patient. Beverly is then put on administrative leave by the hospital board. The board holds the surgical tools as evidence of a disturbed mind. Due to the twins' codependent relationship, Beverly's breakdown eventually causes Elliot to follow.

Cast

Jill and Jacqueline Hennessy, themselves identical twins, made their film debut in this movie as twin prostitutes.

Responses

Dead Ringers won the Genie Award for Best Canadian Film of 1988.

It is the favorite Cronenberg film of Korean director Chan-wook Park^[3] and was voted for in the 2002 Sight and Sound Poll by Lalitha Gopalan, who ranked it 4th ^[4]. In 1999, Rolling Stone listed Dead Ringers as 95th on their list of 100 Maverick Movies.^[5]

References

External links

• Criterion Collection essay by Chris Rodley

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