The Silent Twins

As a larger statement about the ways in which outsiders and marginalised people are crushed by our world, it hits the nail right on the head.

Some wonderful visual flourishes and two brilliant central performances by Wright and Lawrence help to illuminate the Gibbons sisters’ headspaces. But without important context, true insight and understanding remains elusive.

It’s hard not to be moved by how smoothly Smoczyńska drifts away from the biopic elements of Andrea Seigel’s screenplay to instead inhabit the rich, internal world the Gibbons occupied.

Perhaps it’s entirely appropriate that a film about an impenetrable pair should itself prove somewhat impenetrable.

Though skilfully made and formally structured, the film occasionally takes on the quality of “outsider art” – to use the fashionable phrase for works such as June’s book.

What this singular film captures so well is that the sisters, far from being silent, had plenty to say.

[The film] is a stylistically lopsided but concise piece of cinema that marks a more-than-welcome return to the witty camp of [Smoczyńska’s] debut feature As a cinematically fresh plastic flower bouquet [it] has something to say to every type of audience

Given the mental health issues raised, “Silent Twins” can at times be an uncomfortable, grueling movie to watch. Unlike in Jeff Malmberg’s documentary “Marwencol” (2010) or the British series “Chewing Gum” (2015-2017), the audience gets no palate-cleansin

Heart-breaking on the surface but utterly boring where it counts.

Lawrance and Wright deserve credit for depicting the idiosyncratic personalities of Jennifer and June — loving and fighting as artistic collaborators and jealous rivals — but The Silent Twins plugs away without the urgency or rising stakes.