Overall Rating: C
In the over-calculated downer that was The Skeleton Twins, there was one shining element that shone bright enough to keep the film on my mind through Awards Season. His name is Bill Hader. Sketch comedy, character acting or taking the lead as the embodiment of every gay stereotype to carry this otherwise weak movie; a great performer is a great performer. Bill Hader is a great performer, no one will disagree with that, but with his departure from Saturday Night Live before last season, many worried he wouldn’t find his feet on the outside. That process has been slow, but with small parts in some really interesting projects (I’m looking at you, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him / Her and Inside Out) he kept busy without subjecting himself to trivial, underwritten voice-roles (well, not completely). With Skeleton Twins, he proves he is here to stay, with one of the most perfectly calculated convincing-yet-fun performances of a member of the gay community, which independent cinema is becoming increasingly more vocal about. You can feel the fun oozing from the screen when he let’s Milo cut loose, and there is just something in his eyes that makes his sadness, his perceived place in this world, fully presented.
My problem with Milo, Hader’s impeccably performed character, is that he exists for the purpose of being gay. Moreso, he exists to be a manifestation of all of the stigma — good and bad — about gays. The role would not have worked at all as a straight man, and hardly as a straight woman. After Milo’s suicide attempt kicks off the action, he even says, “I know, just another gay stereotype.” He’s right.
Yes, he tried to kill himself, about one and a half times during the movie (one actual attempt, once on the edge of a ledge), and so does his sister Maggie opposite order, and it’s pills instead of a ledge. She is played by Kristen Wiig, and they are the twins of the title, poetic casting considering Hader and Wiig’s common pasts. Other than a too-obvious metaphor that “we are all brothers on the inside” (quote from Hercules: Zero to Hero), they are skeleton twins because, ultimately, of their late-father’s (suicide, obviously) obsession with Halloween. The opening shots of the film are of the twins as children, dressed head-to-toe in spooky costumes and playing with their toy skeleton knick-knacks from their father. These toys clearly have meaning to the two, as becomes very clear in their adulthood, and they are shown with them evrywhere, even playing in the pool. When the skeleton gets thrown in, Milo swims after it and grabs it off of the floor before swimming it to safety. Sometimes when it gets thrown in the pool it looks like it will be sinking forever. Just sinking, and sinking and sinking.
So begins this film’s Freudian obsession with water. Milo’s greatest concern in the world is his fish. He does the deed in a bathtub. Maggie is taking scuba lessons. This isn’t the only psychoanalytical angle in The Skeleton Twins, and I began to wonder if writer/director Craig Johnson was a psychology student trying to prove their was some connection between his degree and profession.
A major subplot involves a relationship Milo has with a salesman at the local bookstore. At first he is nervous to approach him. Then, the man, Rich, is angry at Milo’s visit. Then, the audience gets bored. If you are going to give this much weight to something ambiguous, it might as well be interesting. Ty Burrell is plays Rich and is catastrophically miscast, and I was in no way interested in this awkward, flat and unappealing character. It turns out that Rich was a teacher of Milo’s in high school, and one of the few people who made Milo feel good about himself. Perhaps too much, because, well, let’s just say Rich isn’t a school teacher anymore. But does this explain all of Milo’s woes? Not at first glance, no. They are shy together, but Milo definitely still has affection toward the man. What is revealed late, too late perhaps, is how the authorities came to known about Rich and Milo’s afterschool activities. The issue in the writing that fails to execute what is otherwise an exceptional idea is that this seems really trivial. There are two types of missing information in movies. First, the kind that when asked about half-way through merits the response, “I don’t know, good question.” The second, in the same situation, merits, “What? Who cares?” This is an example of the second one. It hadn’t even crossed my mind until the, again, otherwise solid reveal, and if asked about it I would have said, “I don’t know. Just assume someone walked in on them. It really isn’t important to the story. Just watch the movie.”
The fact is that it explains the divide between Milo and Maggie, twins who haven’t spoken in ten years until Milo’s attempt to end his life. They were once so close, and again grow so close, that that seems like lost time. The scenes of the two together loving life are the most rewarding in the movie. At the end of the day, no matter what artistic ambitions Johnson had, The Skeleton Twins is an actors’ showcase for Wiig and Hader. Hader rises to the occasion, fulfilling both the dramatic and comedic demands of the role. Wiig is a bit too caricatured in Maggie’s independent scenes, but it was a solid effort for the out-of-comfort-zone super-star. Together though, they made magic in the living room with what must be the single greatest lip-sinc ever of “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.” A Later scene pits the two comedy stars against some laughing gas after hours at a dentist’s office. It is one of the only natural seeming scenes in the film, and it is the highlight. Wiig and Hader are perfect together, and the scene plays less like planned character development and more like an improvised back-and-forth between two comic wunderkinds seeing who can make the other laugh harder.
Luke Wilson takes on an awesome if totally trite supporting role as Lance, Maggie’s Vibram-wearing, brush-clearing, rock wall-climbing husband. He is already a dad in every sense — Wilson’s pronounced fist pump when Milo finally shows potential at his new job is among the few non-Hader hilarious moments in the dreary film. He’s the type of guy who says things like, “Oh, broken glass, nobody move!,” and “I say ‘We’re trying to get pregnant’ because it’s not sexist that way.” Poor Lance. He’s the great dude who can’t catch a break in this exhaustively structured let-down of a movie. It’ll be ok, buddy.
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