‘The Silent Twins’ is a retelling of the lives of June and Jennifer Gibbons – real-life twins who grew up in Wales. The film follows the girls through their adolescence and young adulthood, as they become known as the ‘silent twins’ due to their refusal to communicate with anyone but each other.
The film opens on the young twins playing pretend, imagining themselves as radio hosts. The fun is interrupted as their mother brings them lunch, immediately stopping the girls from speaking. Their mother and father are soon met by the school counsellor and headmaster as they inform the parents they cannot keep the girls in their school if they refuse to communicate.
The girls are transferred to a school for special children, and are subsequently separated as they are deemed a bad influence on each other. As the twins are even worse off without each other, they are eventually reunited. Before being able to complete formal education, the twins isolate themselves in their bedroom in their parents house, spending time writing stories and plays.
To gain more real-world experience, June and Jennifer befriend a boy Wayne, who they get high with, drink and subsequently lose their virginities to. Descending down a destructive path, the twins commit theft, vandalism and arson, landing them in the Broadmoor Hospital, where they are institutionalized.
Living in the hospital, the girls are separated again after an altercation, leading to a decline in their mental health and ability to carry on writing. Interested in their story, Marjorie Wallace meets with the girls and over time gains their trust, publicizing their story and bringing them to public attention.
After 11 years the girls are deemed rehabilitated an are due to be released from the hospital. With their discharge just days away, Jennifer’s health declines until on the day of their release, she mysteriously dies on her way home. Distraught, June manages to move on and is freed from the pact of silence with her sister.
‘The Silent Twins’, based on the book by Wallace and screenplay by Andrea Seigel, marks Agnieszka Smoczynska’s English language feature directorial debut. From the opening credits, the film presents a cheerful and vivid environment that the two main characters inhabit. Leading into their imagined radio-show, June and Jennifer are shown literally basking in each others company, enjoying their private and exclusive group, with Smoczynska creating an idyllic and almost surreal sense of joy that the twins share.
The tonal shift to bland and drab colours, no accompanying music and little to no dialogue as soon as the twin’s mother enters, instantly highlights to us the gravity with which June and Jennifer view other peoples presence, marking it as an intrusion into their world and as something to be avoided entirely.
The main focus of the film is the unhealthy and co-dependent relationship that has developed and only seems to grow stronger over time between June and Jennifer, portrayed by Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrence respectively. Picking up during their teenage years, Wright and Lawrence depict the twins being separated, showing a complete mental breakdown and withdrawal from the outside world for both counterparts.
Once they decide to isolate and work independently on their writing, the unhealthy undercurrent to the relationship surfaces, as Jennifer expresses disdain towards June for having gained recognition and having her work published. This is later revisited when the two are in Broadmoor, leading to one of the more violent altercations between the two, highlighting that the way they have chosen to live is unsustainable, with Jennifer feeling threatened by June’s success and fearing being overshadowed by her sibling.
The film presents a continuous exploration and development of the twins jealousies and anger, as they try to keep up with each others exploits. Early on in the film, as the twins are discovering intoxicants and boys, Wright and Lawrence inhabit the teenagers flawlessly, expressing the ferocity of each violent outburst and the subsequent shame and regret for having harmed the other.
The twins do reach the conclusion that their way of life is unsustainable, realizing their imbalanced dynamic must come to an end as they only harm and enable each others worst impulses. Curiously, Jennifer’s untimely demise is left open for interpretation, as Jennifer’s death is left a mystery such as it stands now, - curious and unexplained.
‘The Silent Twins’ is a coming together of two worlds, depicting both the twins real life and short form stop-motion adaptations of some of the Gibbon’s work, as well as an imagining of June’s ‘The Pepsi-Cola Addict’ excerpt. The sporadic interlacing of the twins work serves as a reminder that they shared and created many fantastical and intriguing worlds, harbouring creative forces that only needed room to breathe and flourish. Perhaps due to the harsh shift in tone between the real world and the twin’s imagined scenarios the switch may feel jarring, yet it provides further insight and exploration of who they were, only adding to the story and characters.
Score: 3/4
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