Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers gets a feminine and feminist revamp in new minisseries
Directed by Alice Birch and streaming on Amazon Prime, the series update the classic body horror flick by adding some bits of American Psycho to it
Recently released on Amazon Prime, the minisseries Dead Ringers updates the movie with the same name, directed by David Cronenberg. Both titles are inspired by the book Twins, written by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland. The series is directed by Alice Birch, already known for her work on The Wonder and Lady Macbeth — both starring Florence Pugh. Here, the identical twins Elliot and Beverly Mantle, once interpreted by Jeremy Irons, get a new feminine and feminist revamp with Rachel Weisz.
Similarly to what happened to the movie for American Psycho, which was directed by a woman (Mary Harron), Alice Birch also gives a new touch to the classic Cronenberg title. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that the miniseries feels like a hybrid of American Psycho and Dead Ringers as it also addresses topics related to the corporate and investor worlds.
Instead of the iconic scene where entrepreneurs exchange cards, here it is the dynamic between the twins and the investor Rebecca Parker (Jennifer Ehle) that is fit to become unforgettable. In order to open their fertility clinic, the sisters need to win this heir to a pharma tycoon which was responsible for an epidemic of substance use — parallels to the American opioid crisis are definitely intended.
If Beverly is supposed to play the good twin that aims to revolutionize the way women become mothers and experience childbirth, Elliot is more interested in carrying on with her research on extrauterine reproduction. All those lamb fetuses exposed in tanks around the clinic are no mere decoration, but a clear reference to an actual and successful research that managed to grow animals in a synthetic environment.
But Rebecca is no hypocrite: she knows very well about the issues with her fortune, but she is “just playing the game”. In other words, she does not care whether Beverly wants to build a fertility center to make childbirth more “humanized”, as long as it is profitable. And, well, the sketchy research that Elliot is conducting is also no problem when you have money and influence.
It is during a dinner where the twins have a final chance to sell their project that they meet Rebecca’s rich friends, which are basically human representations of liberal feminism and tech corp. While several blonde children play in another room with their babysitter, in the dinner room sit a parody of Gwyneth Paltrow, the stereotypical Asian innovator character (who, by the way, can only communicate with the help of a translator), and the female version of the eccentric entrepreneur that has a chip implanted in their hand and calls themselves transhumanist and biohacker. Last, but definitely not least, there is also a personification of the feminist Ryan Gosling meme who apologizes for being a man and carries tampons in his pockets.
Just like in Childbirth, starring Natasha Lyonne, here pregnancy is something essentially frightening and traumatizing. That is because Birch explores the most real and horrible facets of maternity: the physical and psychical pains of becoming a mother.
Instead of being startled by loud scream queens, we have our ears filled with the horror of women screaming as they experience contractions, miscarriages, childbirth. Instead of watching blood flowing from a stab, the bloodbath happens during vaginal delivery and C-section procedures. Blood and pain are part of the Mantle routine, to the point that, sometimes, they even forget to clean up themselves.
While the new Ari Aster movie, Beau is Afraid, becomes a new A24 title that addresses mommy issues, Dead Ringers brings the same topic to the discussion but with a much more interesting and refreshing perspective: the woman’s (as in the mother’s). With really sharp dialogues, the minisseries feature the many facets of motherhood and womanhood without necessarily taking a moralistic standpoint.
That is because Elliot’s lack of scruples is always highlighted by the contrast to Beverly’s ethics. However, at the same time Beverly’s goodness is put in question on whether it is really about kindness or rather cowardice and hypocrisy.
The minisseries also recalls the origins of gynecology when it presents the heirs of James Marion Sims, considered the father of modern gynecology. This title was given to him after performing experiments with a 17-year-old enslaved black woman who had a miscarriage after being in labor for three days. It is also mentioned that the physician performed several surgeries without using anesthesia, though some techniques were already available at that time.
As previously discussed, Dead Ringers also addresses the ethical dilemma surrounding scientific and technological innovation. That is, how can one conciliate the suffering of research subjects and the possible discoveries that could be beneficial to all humanity? While Beverly is haunted by the enslaved woman, in her clinic, another woman candidates herself to take part of any experiment that could finally allow her to become a mother.
That is a difficult challenge, but Alice Birch manages to tackle it during the last episode of the minisseries. Similarly to other series, there is a possible catch for a second season, but the six 59-minute long episodes are already very successful in communicating the ethical dilemmas of motherhood and fertility science. Topics such as transgender are not approached here, but maybe that is what we can expect from an upcoming season, in case it ever happens to exist.
