To be a twin is to be part of an exclusive two-member club, to be guaranteed a partner who sees you, understands you, knows you. Cruelly, it can also mean a lifetime of living as half of a whole, to never emerge as a person in your own right, to always be seen in relation to another. Where does one person end and the other begin? At what point do one twin's thoughts simply become an extension of the other's needs?
With his 1988 drama Dead Ringers, David Cronenberg neatly snipped away the body horror of his past work, honing in instead on the emotional violence of twin gynaecologists (Jeremy Irons) who, with their surgical, dispassionate view of the human body, are unable to see how enmeshed their feelings are. This 2023 adaptation by showrunner Alice Birch (she’s been on the Succession writing team and most recently wrote The Wonder, 2022) is spread out over six episodes and has no such evasiveness of bodily fluids. The first episode features an extended montage of women in childbirth howling and pushing, pools of blood, C-section incisions and closeups of babies’ heads emerging out of the birth canal. Born kicking and screaming, the new Dead Ringers, for better and worse, is very much its own thing.
It’s better, because the added storylines of mad science experiments elevate the gender-swapped twins to the status of Gods while also filming them flung off their pedestals, devastatingly human and pitiful. Beverly (Rachel Weisz), who’s made it her life’s work to care for women’s bodies, is continually let down by her own, unable to carry a pregnancy to term. Her sister Elliot (also Weisz), who’s made it her life’s work to care for Beverly, is determined to make it happen. Where one Mantle brother of the Cronenberg film saw mutant women and their deformed insides – projections of a failed relationship – the Mantle sisters see potential. To fulfil their dream of opening a birthing centre, they make a deal with the devil, a Sackler-esque billionaire who made a fortune off the opioid crisis (Jennifer Ehle), and what follows is the slow rot of their soul.
It’s worse, because the psychosexual tension of the original is cruder and more overt. The show opens with a stranger asking the twins if they've ever had sex. Maybe the scene is the natural result of the modern television landscape in which brash sexual overtures don't feel as shocking or transgressive, but in the world of the show, it becomes a pointed, tired statement on men assuming women exist for their sexual gratification.
It’s better, because the longform streaming format gives the sisters more time to descend into hells of their own making. Beverly and Elliot have only been alike superficially – though Beverly’s centre-parted bun and Elliot’s side-parted hair worn down are visual shorthand to differentiate them – and unlike the Mantle brothers with their symbiotic partnership, the cracks in this union have already started to show. Weisz proves to be Weisz’s best scene partner, each of her twins needling at each other’s sore spots as if they were prodding a bruise. Her Elliot is a largely external performance, girded by bursts of manic energy and obsessive eating, while her Beverly conveys an internalised, quiet desperation. Like in the movie, Elliot is the established power broker, more confident and assured, while Beverly is the mousy, reticent one. The twins have long had practice at impersonating each other but the narrative and personal guardrails really come off when their personalities gradually, thrillingly begin to bleed into each other as the show progresses. What the show navigates well, with increasing tension and alarm, is how Elliot’s power stems from the need to feel needed. What’s she to do when the co-dependent Beverly meets someone else?
It’s worse because Genevieve Cotard (Britne Oldford), an actress Beverly falls for, doesn’t get much to do. Their relationship grows in the margins and the show is unable to articulate what draws the two of them to each other. All the while, Elliot grows more resentful and possessive, someone who’s long thrived on being part of a singular unit now being cleaved in half. It's telling that Genevieve is famous for starring in a zombie show. Surrounded by people who eat brains and carve bellies, she's at the mercy of both.
It’s better because Dead Ringers examines women’s drives and desires with a frank and unflinching gaze. Some of the show’s thematic concerns – abortion rights, the human costs of advancing medicine, post-partum disorder – are handled with the gravitas they deserve, but others land awkwardly or much too glibly. For all its graphic depictions of blood and viscera, some of Dead Ringers’ most uncomfortable moments are staged as dinner-table conversations. Away from the hermetically sealed echo chambers of their clinic or apartment, the twins are thrown off kilter by people looking to put them under a microscope, ask them impossible questions and push their moral boundaries.
Dead Ringers has always been a dark love story, in which the genetic relationship between its lead pair only twists them further into their spiral of jealousy and obsession. The best way to enjoy the series is to set aside the original. Instead, focus on the delicious detours it takes, bolstered by a stunning dual performance from Weisz who is alternately despairing, euphoric, needy, self-possessed, calculating. She’s the backbone of the series, and its bloody, bruised heart. And as the actress proves, two is always better than one.