Bill Hader And Kristen Wiig Excel As THE SKELETON TWINS

Now playing at an indie art house near me:

THE SKELETON TWINS

(Dir. Craig Johnson, 2014)

Former Saturday Night Live cast member Bill Hader has been in dozens of movies since 2006, but other than voicing the lead character in the CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS movies, most have been bit parts with credits like “Man at Store” or “Recumbent Biker” or brief cameos. 

Now Hader gets to carry a film in the flesh, along with co-star (and former SNL collegue) Kristen Wiig, in Craig Johnson’s second feature film THE SKELETON TWINS opening today at an indie art house near me.

Hader and Wiig star as Milo and Maggie, a couple of long estranged twins who get back in touch after both coincidentally attempt suicide on the same day. So yeah, it’s a darkly comic drama.

Wiig’s Maggie invites her brother to stay with her and her husband (Luke Wilson in “bro mode”) at their Nyack, New York home, until he can get back on his feet after being hospitalized for slashing his wrists (her attempt involving almost taking an overdose of pills she keeps secret).

Despite Wilson’s super nice guy demeanor, Wiig has been sleeping with others (most recently her douche scuba instructor played by Boyd Holbrook), and is taking birth control pills while her husband thinks they’re trying to have a baby. Again, this is info she keeps to herself so that she can seem to be the stable sister, while she treats her brother like a “special needs kid,” as Hader’s Milo puts it.

Meanwhile Hader purposely runs into his former high school English teacher (Modern Fmaily’s Ty Burrell in a neatly nuanced performance), now working at a bookstore. Burrell, a conflicted, closeted man, had seduced Hader when he was his student and lost his job over the inappropriate relationship.

One of the most amusing sequences in the film concerns Johanna Gleason, a veteran of a few Woody Allen films and just about every sitcom in the last 30 years, as Hader and Wiig’s mother, a neglectful mother turned New Age guru, being invited for dinner by Hader to Wiig’s chagrin. The twins’ father had committed suicide when they were 14, and their mother appears to have checked out of parenting as a result. This makes for a realistically edgy and awkward, as well as wickedly funny, dinner scene that anybody with tension in their family can relate to.

Another standout scene has Hader and Wiig clowning around on nitrous oxide at the dental office she works at. Their SNL training most prepared them for this bit, which proves that a comedy drama about suicide can effectively fit in fart jokes.

It’s a joy to see this very believable brother and sister pairing come together to lip synch and dance to Starship’s “Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now,” even if you can’t stand the song, and when they fight towards the end of the film – really taking it all out at each other – their acting is so sharp that I felt like I was violating their privacy watching them.

Hader has shown time and time again that he’s a first class impressionist, and a reliably goofy presence in many projects, but his performance as Milo is a career best that shows the layers of depth the actor has to share. It recalls his former SNL co-star Will Forte’s fine dramatic work in NEBRASKA last year, and makes me want to see more of these funny folks try on more serious roles.

Wiig has carried movies before - most notably her breakthrough 2010 comedy smash BRIDESMAIDS – but this may be my favorite of her screen roles. Wiig’s Maggie is a sad mess of a human being, as screwed up as her brother (possibly more even) that has a real feeling sense of humor, but the worried look in her eyes gives her inner torment away. Her character’s turns late in the film are heartbreaking, and a little hard to watch, but Wiig movingly pulls it off beautifully.

THE SKELETON TWINS is a well made, well written (it well deserved the Screenwriting Award that director Johnson and co-writer Mark Heyman won at Sundance), and extremely well acted film that may very well make my top 10 list of the year’s best. It’s also the most emotionally charged movie starring a couple of SNL cast members since…well, ever.

More later...

Dog Day Matinee

It was so good to hide from the scorching Summer heat in air conditioned theaters in the last few weeks. I caught up with some of the second-tier films like ONCE and YOU KILL ME (reviewed below) that are competing with the blockbusters. I did however make it beyond my local art-house theater haunting ground that I normally dwell in to hit the multiplex to see - RATATOUILLE (Dir. Brad Bird, 2007) When walking out of the matinee I asked the common after-movie question to a friend who saw the movie with me - "so, what did you think?" He said "it sucked! No, just kidding - it was awesome." Sure, an obvious joke but still apt because we knew going in that it was going to be awesome. Pixar has a high level of quality streak that they are riding on and the casting of comedian Patton Oswalt, who is also having a bit of a winning streak lately *, is pure genius. Oswalt voices Remy - a French rat who's a "foodie" - not content to sift through trash for his meals because of his sophicated palette. After infiltrating a famous restaurant that has dropped a star off its four star rating after the passing of its owner and head chef Auguste Gusteau (Brad Garrett) Remy teams up with Linguinni (Lou Romano)- an incompetent klutz who has just been hired as janitor. With Remy's culinary genius - inspired in part by a ghost of Gusteau - Linguinni rises above his mere kitchen help status to become the star chef. The animation is fluid and flawless, the dialogue quick and witty, the script with its honest passion for food and cooking is sharp as can be, and the supporting cast (including Janeanne Garafolo, Ian Holm, and Peter O'Toole) is spot-on. Man, I hope this Pixar winning streak lasts for a long time. * This great Onion AV Club interview with Patton Oswalt reveals that he has done script doctoring punch-up work on 25 movies alone this year including SHREK THE THIRD. I would really like to give him props for his newest stand-up comedy disc "Werewolves and Lollipops" on SubPop. If you are not in the habit of purchasing comedy discs (most people I know aren't) you should break the habit and buy this one - it's hilarious all the way through and it comes with a bonus DVD of a performance at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia in which an audience member pees on another audience member because he didn't want to leave to go to the bathroom and miss any of Oswalt's set. Don't worry - you don't actually see this happening but it becomes a part of the routine in a glorious way. And now for the arthouse also rans : ONCE (Dir. John Carney, 2006) This highly touted Irish drama finally arrives in my area and has been charming the pants off of nearly everyone I know who sees it - me included. The story is simple - struggling songwriter Guy (Glen Hansard) meets piano playing Girl (Marketa Irglova) , Girl helps Guy * to make a demo recording and the will they-won't they get together question is amplified through the music they create together. A very low-fi griminess adds to the realistic almost documentary feel and the music is heartfelt and catchy. ONCE has a sweet sincere melody to it and that's a pretty good endorsement for a movie that is almost a demo itself. * that is actually how they are credited - we never know their names. YOU KILL ME (John Dahl, 2007) Ben Kingsley is Frank, a New Jersey hit-man whose alcoholicism has interferred with his ability to pull off his mafia contracts. Told by his boss (Phillip Baker Hall) he must attend AA meetings and sober up in San Fransisco where he gets a job in a funeral home. Yep, if the first half of this plot description made you think of The Sopranos the second half takes us to Six Feet Under. Through his new temporary line of work he meets Tea Leoni, gets sponsered by Luke Wilson, and monitored by creepy real estate agent Bill Pullman. There are a number of mild chuckles but this film isn't the delightful dark comedy it wants to be. I didn't really buy its 'drinking : bad/murder : okay' message either but the acting which is so much better than the material saves this from being forgettable. Kingsley should actually consider doing that "I'd pay to watch him read the phone book" project that people have been pitching for years. Now for a review of a recent release DVD if you please (or even if you don't) : Lt. Jim Dangle (Thomas Lennon) - "Why was the 911 switchboard unplugged?" Deputy Trudy Wiegel (Kerri Kenney-Silver) "We had to plug in the popcorn maker!" RENO 911! : MIAMI (Dir. Ben Garant, 2007) I've enjoyed the modern Keystone-esque antics in the satire of the reality TV standard Cops since Reno 911 premiered on Comedy Central in 2003 but then I've also liked Strangers With Candy and its transfer to the big screen yielded pretty patchy results. This is better than that by at least a notch and for the record funnier than another likewise stoner cop comedy SUPER TROOPERS ('01) by a long stretch. It has these things going for it - the full cast of TV regulars appears including Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant (who both co-wrote) it has a good Laughs Per Minute ratio, some clever cameos (Danny Devito, The Rock, Paul Rudd, and all the members from the sketch comedy troup/MTV show The State *), and a consistent tone throughout. The squad journeys to a police convention on Spring Break in Miami and after a major arena quarentine they are made the only law enforcers of the city ensuring a wave of wackiness. Since this review is based on the unrated DVD version I can't comment on the theatrical version obviously but there is a lot of scatological humor of which I'm not a fan of - I could have really done without the cheap motel masturbation sequence for instance. Still as a whole it's funnier than it has a legal right to be. RENO 911! : MIAMI may never be considered a cult classic but it will be preferable to many of the films that air on Comedy Central for years to come. * Also Patton Oswalt appears in the more-than-mere-cameo role of acting Miami-mayor Jeff Spoder - okay! That's enough Patton promoting for now! This post is dedicated to Laszlo Kovacs (1933-2007)- the recently deceased legendary cinematographer who has made his mark on 60 movies including classics like EASY RIDER, SHAMPOO, PAPER MOON, and GHOSTBUSTERS. More later...