Uncovering the Skeletons

Writer-director-producer-actor pair Jay and Mark Duplass have been slowly building up indie cred with a string of critically well-regarded movies. I gave them a lot of rope after thoroughly enjoying Jeff, Who Lives at Home. They hanged themselves with that rope with the abysmal Your Sister's Sister. (And landed somewhere between the extremes on Safety Not Guaranteed.) Now I've watched the latest produced by Mark Duplass, and I've decided I probably just don't like these brothers' taste in movies.

The Skeleton Twins is the type of film that comes along every so often. One or two actors generally known for broad comedy take on a more serious story (sometimes with comedic elements) and plays it straight. Critics swarm. I'm often drawn in right along with them, because I've found that skilled comedians typically play drama more effectively than dramatic actors can play comedy.

This time around, the comedians in question are two deserving ones, Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader. They star as fraternal twins Maggie and Milo, replete with emotional issues -- Maggie is serially cheating on her husband, Milo is trying to rekindle a fling with his old high school teacher. Both resent their absent father and their flighty mother. The movie begins with Maggie's own suicide attempt interrupted by the news that her brother has attempted suicide. Yes, it all sounds depressingly serious. But Maggie and Milo both have a weirdly twisted view of everything, a sort of gallows humor about life in general that only they share. The movie isn't relentlessly dark.

The performances are very good. Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader make a likeable and believable pair. They're more than capable of handling the movie's more serious scenes, and they're experts at drawing little laughs in the middle of heavier moments. One particular scene, a lip-synched pseudo-karaoke song in the middle of the movie, plays out for virtually the entire length of the song -- for far longer than it should be effective, yet it ends up being one of the best scenes in the movie, the one sequence of unbridled joy. Luke Wilson provides a fun counter-vibe as Maggie's perpetually upbeat husband, while Ty Burrell (another skilled comedian showing us he can play drama) plays Milo's complicated high school teacher.

However, the movie doesn't really have much to say. In the way that people battling depression sometimes zombiewalk through life with a thousand-year stare, aimlessly looking for something to kindle interest, the movie fumbles around with no aspirations at being more than a simple "slice of life" tale. It has no desire to comment on the reality it's presenting; it only wants to present it.

My attention was wandering long before the final credits rolled; not even the good performances were enough to really hold me. I think the movie will score with an audience who recognizes themselves in it -- people particularly close with a brother or sister, or people who have themselves battled depression. But it doesn't do enough to let the outsiders in. I give it a C-.