Butler's Cinema Scene

Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader

“THE SKELETON TWINS”  My rating: B (Opening Sept. 26 at the Tivoli and Leawood)

93 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The old adage about a tragedian lurking inside every comedian is perfectly illustrated by “The Skeleton Twins,” an achingly sad yet hugely amusing study of self-destructive siblings — played by “SNL” alums Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig — who can find comfort only in their shared misery.

In an early scene of Craig Johnson’s dramedy, Maggie (Wiig) is preparing to gulp a handful of sleeping pills when her grim ritual is interrupted by a phone call.  Across the country in LA, her twin brother Milo (Hader) has beaten her to the punch, slitting his wrists while sitting in the tub.  He’s in the hospital.  Can Maggie — who hasn’t seen her bro in a decade — come and fetch him?

Granted, this doesn’t sound like a laugh riot. Wiig and Hader — who a few years backed played husband and wife in the coming-of-age comedy “Adventureland” — initially approach their roles with dead-on seriousness, their performances imbued with a sense of weariness that makes simply rising from a chair a monumental effort.

But after Milo returns with Maggie to her home in upstate New York, the film (co-written by Mark Heyman) gently begins working its magic.

The twins have been cursed with self-awareness. They realize they are unhappy, they see themselves almost as psychological caricatures, and if they’re not actually going to kill themselves they need to make fun of themselves to get through it all.

Why do they gravitate toward self-destruction? The film offers no easy answers. In brief flashbacks we see their beloved father — himself an early suicide — giving life lessons and presenting the children with colorful plastic skeletons (the message: Get used to death, come to an accomodation with it.)  About halfway through the film they are visited by their absentee mother (Joanna Gleeson), a New Age groupie so bent on spiritual self-improvement that she’s never had time for her progeny.

With no pat psychological explanation of Maggie and Milo’s dilemma we’re left with the conclusion that maybe some people are just born miserable.

Luke Wilson

Milo seems the more wretched of the two.  Years back he went to Hollywood with dreams of an acting career. To date he hasn’t gotten an agent. And he’s gay — the breakup of his latest relationship precipitated the wrist-cutting. Now that he’s back in his old haunts he tries to re-establish contact with his former high school teacher (“Modern Family’s” Ty Burrell) with whom he had a wildly inappropriate relationship while a teen.

Outwardly, Maggie seems to have a solid life.  She’s married to the funny, hugely supportive Lance (Luke Wilson), who adores her. She has a decent gig as a dental hygienist. A nice old New England house. And the couple are trying to have a baby.

Well, Lance is.  Maggie is sneaking birth control pills and cheating with her scuba instructor (Boyd Holbrook). Not that she takes all that much pleasure from it.

It slowly dawns on us that Milo and Maggie need each other to be a complete person.  In one spectacularly funny/touching scene, Milo attempts to cool his sister’s anger by lip-syncing to Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us.” His outrageously fey delivery is irresistable; soon Maggie is trading choruses with him.

And a stanza later, most viewers will be singing along, too.

It’s a nice metaphor for the movie.  It’s downbeat, it’s painful, but these two can still find solace in self-lacerating humor.  There’s a bravery in that.

With only his second feature (the first was 2009’s largely unseen “True Adolescents”), director Johnson has pulled off a coup. He’s given us a comedy about profound unhappiness that shortchanges neither the laughs nor the sadness.

| Robert W. Butler