‘Dead Ringers’ Series Review – Adaptation of The David Cronenberg Classic Is Simply Stunning
Mary Beth McAndrews
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David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers is a horror classic about twin gynecologists, both played by Jeremy Irons, who are intrigued by female anatomy. The film follows their toxic co-dependency and their growing obsession with “mutant” vaginas. Now, showrunner Alice Birch is taking on Cronenberg’s unorthodox body horror with her series adaptation of the same name. With the series, Birch makes Dead Ringers unapologetically femme and queer, placing the series’ focus on questions of bodily autonomy and empowerment while delving even deeper into the twisted psychology of the Mantle twins, this time played by the always stunning Rachel Weisz.
Weisz plays Beverly and Elliot Mantle, identical twin gynecologists who want to revolutionize how women give birth. They want to build a state-of-the-art birthing center that not only provides the best possible care to mothers, but also pioneers fertility research. While both are highly intelligent doctors that share a face, the Mantles couldn’t be more different. Elliot is the “oldest” sister who loves to drink, party, and have sex with strangers in club bathrooms. She’s glamorous but unstable, controlling, and manipulative. Beverly, on the other hand, is timid almost to a fault, mousy and singularly focused on her work. She’s OK with being under Elliot’s thumbs. Until she meets Genevieve (Britne Oldford).
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From there, the six-episode series chronicles their journey to opening birthing centers, Elliot’s desire for control, Beverley’s struggle to be her own person, and so much more. While everything here is rooted in science, Birch really plays up the horror in the twins’ co-dependency, in Beverly’s own nightmarish descent into madness, and in explicitly showing the bloody reality of birth. And oh, do they show the painful reality of birth. There’s no sugar coating here to make birth seem so beautiful and life-changing. There are close-up shots of crowning heads and stretched vaginas, gaping C-section incisions, and screaming women. Not all births are successful and that grief is never avoided or softened. Birch doesn’t want to make birth beautiful; she wants to show the terrifying reality of bringing life into the world.
Contrasting with the horrors of birth is immaculate production and set design by Erin Magill and Adam Scher. Every apartment, mansion, and hospital room is constructed with an incredible eye for detail, making every set feel both lived-in and alien. The sterility of the hospital setting leaks into every space, even if it’s full of plush couches and expensive paintings. Wealth is everywhere and it is luscious, but it is devoid of life and connection. This series about the ethics of making life also shows a world that doesn’t really understand what it means to live.
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The center of this world is the stunning Rachel Weisz who delivers two award-winning performances at both Beverly and Elliot. She almost tricks the viewers into thinking she has a twin as she so expertly creates two very different characters who are so strongly linked not just by DNA, but by their shared obsessions. As the episodes progress and Beverly’s tethers to reality begin to fray, Weisz further stuns as she essentially fights herself and watches herself have a mental breakdown. Jeremy Irons may have been the first to play the Mantle twins, but Weisz enriches these characters even further as she explores their pasts, their sexualities, their fears, and so much more.
While Weisz will deservedly earn much of the praise for the series, special attention should also be given to Poppy Liu’s Greta, assistant to the Mantle twins. While often shown in intricate outfits fit for a Brooklyn warehouse party and making smoothies for the twins, her own story is quietly tragic as it slowly unfolds behind the Mantle twins’ chaos. Liu holds her own when acting with Weisz, crafting her own strange and traumatized character with her own strange motivations.
Birth is an incredibly complex topic. Birth is inextricably linked to socioeconomic status and race, as well as gender identity. While in six episodes Dead Ringers tackles many of these complexities, it is still a series focused on biological womanhood and cis women’s ability to conceive. While Dead Ringers is queer and investigates pregnancy without needing to involve men, it is still very much about cis women. On the flip side, the series does tackle the racial disparities in terms of mother mortality rates and prenatal care.
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The series is very centered on rich whiteness, save for an incredibly troubling scene toward the series’ beginning. Then eventually, in episode five (directed by the iconic Karyn Kusama), the series does more explicitly start to confront the reality of mother mortality rates, especially of poor Black women. As of 2021, Black women are 2.6 times more likely to die in childbirth versus white women. It also very explicitly confronts how Black bodies were tortured in the name of science and left nameless by the white men who used them as tools for their own achievement. While Dead Ringers spends much of its runtime luxuriating in the opulence of the elite, it does work to confront deeper complexities around the disparities of women’s healthcare, albeit briefly.
Dead Ringers is a complex, disturbing, and astonishingly beautiful experience that enriches the original text with an incredibly queer and femme adaptation that isn’t terrified of women. Instead, this is a sadly evergreen series about the reality of female bodily autonomy. But even more, it’s about toxic co-dependency. Birch devises a disorienting narrative structure that places us within the Mantle twins’ shared madness, one that doesn’t always make sense but doesn’t need to. Dead Ringers is challenging and sometimes difficult to watch, but damn, it is worth it. From Weisz and Liu’s standout performances to the production design, Birch and team have delivered one of the best series of the year.
Summary
While certain editing and narrative choices may be disorienting, ‘Dead Ringers’ is a stunning take on the Cronenberg classic featuring a stellar Rachel Weisz.
