The story of June and Jennifer Gibbons is one of those “strange but true” curiosities. It’s pitched somewhere alongside the Enfield poltergeist and the dancing plague of 1518. The writers – twins born in 1963 – grew up in Haverfordwest, Wales, the daughters of first-generation Barbadian immigrants. From an early age, they refused to speak to anyone but themselves.
There were other ways to communicate with the world – through poems and stories, or when they were older, drugs, sex and acts of petty crime. At 19, they were found guilty of 16 counts of burglary, theft, and arson. The sisters were institutionalised with an indefinite sentence at the infamous Broadmoor psychiatric hospital where they remained for 11 years.
People tend to fixate on the reasons behind the sisters’ selective mutism. But Agnieszka SmoczyÅ.ska’s The Silent Twins, in its own impassioned and lyrical way, asks an entirely different question: is their choice really that hard to comprehend?...
There were other ways to communicate with the world – through poems and stories, or when they were older, drugs, sex and acts of petty crime. At 19, they were found guilty of 16 counts of burglary, theft, and arson. The sisters were institutionalised with an indefinite sentence at the infamous Broadmoor psychiatric hospital where they remained for 11 years.
People tend to fixate on the reasons behind the sisters’ selective mutism. But Agnieszka SmoczyÅ.ska’s The Silent Twins, in its own impassioned and lyrical way, asks an entirely different question: is their choice really that hard to comprehend?...
- 12/9/2022
- by Clarisse Loughrey
- The Independent - Film
Polish film and TV writer/director Agnieszka Smoczyńska's biographical film "The Silent Twins" is heading to Peacock. The movie is inspired by the book of the same name written by investigative journalist Marjorie Wallace. Published in 1986 under the title "The Silent Twins: A true story of love and hate, dreams and desolation, genius and destruction," Wallace's book is itself based on the true story of June and Jennifer Gibbons, twin sisters who only communicated with each other, and came to be known as "the silent twins."
Smoczyńska's film is heading to Peacock after getting a very limited theatrical release from Focus Features on September 16, 2022 -- meaning, this is probably the first time most people have even heard of the movie. So, before it joins acclaimed 2022 films like Scott Derrickson's "The Black Phone" on NBCUniversal's streaming service, here's everything you need to know about the film ahead of time.
Smoczyńska's film is heading to Peacock after getting a very limited theatrical release from Focus Features on September 16, 2022 -- meaning, this is probably the first time most people have even heard of the movie. So, before it joins acclaimed 2022 films like Scott Derrickson's "The Black Phone" on NBCUniversal's streaming service, here's everything you need to know about the film ahead of time.
- 11/4/2022
- by Fatemeh Mirjalili
- Slash Film
Any number of directors could have shot Andrea Seigel’s straightforwardly moving screenplay for “The Silent Twins” and turned out a straightforwardly moving film in the process. It’s hard to imagine any of those movies looking, sounding or feeling quite like the one Agnieszka Smoczyńska has made, however. Based on the desperately sad true story of two intensely connected Black twin sisters failed by Britain’s educational, legal and mental health services in the ’70s and ’80s, this brazen, tear-your-heart-out drama gets the full benefit of the Polish filmmaker’s singular imagination. Layering one wild formal flourish over another — from macabre stop-motion animation to elaborately choreographed musical fantasies — to channel the inner lives of two young women who communicated only with each other, keeping the rest of the world outside their circle, it’s a swing for the fences that sometimes, almost by design, spins out of control.
Whenever that happens,...
Whenever that happens,...
- 5/26/2022
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
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