SNL veterans Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader play fraternal twins scarred by their father’s suicide years earlier and each contemplating the same exit route; after the gay brother is narrowly rescued from a bloody bath in Los Angeles, his sister invites him to convalesce with her and her new husband in New York. Like most comic actors doing straight drama, Wiig and Hader acquit themselves admirably, though their most persuasive scenes are those that show the siblings goofing around together like overgrown kids; neither actor can summon up the nihilistic despair that drives someone to take his own life. Most of the story transpires between those two extremes, showing how the character’ shared emotional damage has deformed their respective love relationships. Writing and directing his second feature, Craig Johnson demonstrates a knowing sense of how consciously, and helplessly, some people destroy themselves. With Luke Wilson, Ty Burrell, and Joanna Gleason.
The Skeleton Twins
R • 1 hour 33 min • 2014
