By GRACE DETWILER
Starring Rachel Weisz, Britne Oldford, Poppy Liu
Created by Alice Birch
Amazon Original
While David Cronenberg is primarily known to us now as the father of body horror, the second strongest theme running through almost all of his work is a deep fascination with the psychosexual. Displayed most famously in Videodrome and Crash, Cronenberg’s most artful exploration of deviant sexuality and the relationships that generate it is by far 1988’s Dead Ringers. Starring Jeremy Irons as Beverly and Elliot Mantle and Geneviève Bujold as Claire the actress, Dead Ringers is an intimately tender yet deeply unsettling portrayal of twin brother gynecologists who are – according to the tagline – two bodies, two minds, one soul. In Dead Ringers the film, the body horror inherent in the twins’ profession surprisingly takes a backseat to Cronenberg’s character(s) study, which is much more interested in picking apart the closely entwined psyches of its protagonists. Bev and Ellie have an incredibly toxic relationship, yet attempting to end it threatens to kill them both.
Beverly and Elliot share a lover in DEAD RINGERS (1988).
If you haven’t seen Dead Ringers, try to. As soon as you possibly can. And when you do, you may notice that the gender politics of the twins’ relationships with each other, their lovers, and their patients are infinitely convoluted, subversive, and at times, problematic. You may even notice the very intentional feminization of their names, particularly when they speak to one another: Bev and Ellie, Ellie and Bev. The step taken by Alice Birch then, to cross-cast the twins in her miniseries reimagining, feels like a perfectly natural and necessary one.
But it was a stroke of genius by the team behind DEAD RINGERS to task the one and only Rachel Weisz with bringing the Mantles back to life. Her portrayal of the twins is at once wholly original, yet recognizable and familiar to fans of the film. DEAD RINGERS’ other stroke of genius was conceiving of the horrific opportunity presented by twin sisters with the medical skills and knowledge to impregnate each other. The premise of DEAD RINGERS is simple – Beverly wants to have a baby, just not with Elliot. What lengths will her sister go through to ensure that Beverly never leaves her side?
The threat to Elliot’s claim over her sister arrives in the form of Genevieve (Britne Oldford), an up-and-coming actress who captures Beverly’s attention. At the same time, the Mantles have made a deal with the devil – investor Rebecca Parker (Jennifer Ehle, Saint Maud) – in order to open the birthing and research center of their dreams. As Beverly falls in love with Genevieve, Elliot travels down a dark path of experimental science – and pushes her capability to create life to unethical extremes.
The body horror present in DEAD RINGERS is merely the body horror intrinsic in birth and pregnancy itself. The series suffers no shortage of blood and traumatic scenes of childbirth or emergency surgeries. But DEAD RINGERS is a searing social satire as well, and skins alive the bad actors behind the curtain of our health care system. In a world of uncertain access to reproductive health care, the indifference of those with power can be the most terrifying thing of all.
Not unlike its sister film, DEAD RINGERS can at times be difficult to follow – with a fast-moving plot, occasional flashbacks, and indeterminate time jumps between episodes. Yet, this disorganization seems to add to the experience of disorientation, as the series tracks the twins’ descent into madness from episode to episode. The allure of the Mantle twins and the bond they share is impossible to resist, at least until you get too close, and can smell the rot at the heart of it.
DEAD RINGERS is available to stream now on Amazon Prime Video. Don’t miss DEAD RINGERS on the cover of Rue Morgue #212!
