Where that film - itself based on a novel that was loosely inspired by a 1975 New York Magazine piece about twin gynecologists who practiced and died together mysteriously - is cooly masculine, Weisz and Birch’s take is delightfully and grotesquely feminine, obsessed with the ways women’s bodies are manipulated and harmed by forces outside their control. In Dead Ringers, however, Weisz has crafted her best performance to date, a master class in playing identical twins and a stunning exploration of what happens when Weisz wields her prowess against her most skilled scene partner: herself.īrought into being by showrunner and playwright Alice Birch, Dead Ringers has little interest in simply replicating Cronenberg’s 1988 horror film, which starred Jeremy Irons in dual lead roles. It’s an approach of restraint she brings to all her roles, from beloved action romps like The Mummy to austere satire like The Favorite. Listening, I feel submerged in Weisz’s unhurried approach to the script and the emotional ocean it opens up. She says the word high like its single syllable is endless, a spiritual nod to Vivien Leigh’s work as the faded madwoman Blanche DuBois in 1951’s A Streetcar Named Desire. Weisz is doing a southern accent, drawing out each syllable. “I was 17 when he pulled me over, high as a kite,” the monologue begins. Years ago I saved a recording of her monologue from Wong Kar-Wai’s English language film, My Blueberry Nights, and would listen to it on my phone, my ear against the speaker hanging on Weisz’s every breath as her character, drunk and lost in the morass of the past, speaks. Weisz’s voice is tremendous in its dexterity. “Is your imagination so fucked you have to see things twice for your dick to get hard?” Beverly concludes, her digraphs pointedly curt, left to flutter in the air. “Perfect,” she says, sucking the juices of a burger from her middle finger, her eyes never wavering from the man she decides to call Larry because he looks like one. “And for a man’s pleasure? And for your pleasure? That sounds ideal.” Elliot, never one to sit out a perversion, chimes in. I love putting my tongue on her tongue and inside her cunt.” Her face is mocking, with a smile cutting through her porcelain beauty, teeth barred and ready to bite down on the words that follow. You guys ever … you know? The two of you plus a guy?” he asks. I dare you to face the discomfort you have with women’s bodies, and me, and my words.īeverly is less keen on the word, but she’s the first to let it fly, in the first episode, after a middle-aged male diner interrupts her mealtime conversation: “Hey, you guys have, like, exactly the same face. It plays like a dare to her audience: I dare you to recoil. Elliot says “cunt” more frequently, delivered with equal parts splendor and vulgarity - it sounds harsh at first, but then she momentarily dips into a drawl before attacking the final constant with heaving breath. ![]() In Dead Ringers, Amazon’s reimagining of the David Cronenberg film about two depraved twin gynecologists, Weisz plays the two central characters: Beverly and Elliot Mantle, identical sisters who dream of opening a birthing center and research laboratory that challenges existing knowledge of women’s health and infertility. When it slips from her rosy lips - so languidly yet demanding of attention - I get a thrill: “ Cunt.” Hearing Rachel Weisz say the word “cunt” is the auditory equivalent of biting into a piece of ultrafine dark chocolate. She’s giving the greatest performance of her career in Dead Ringers, proving Rachel Weisz’s ideal scene partner is Rachel Weisz.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |