The Skeleton Twins (2014)

We loved this dark comedy about estranged fraternal twins (Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig) who have more in common than they realize. It surprised us with its depth. Hader is amazing as gay brother Milo, with body language that is spot on. Wiig is good as always as straight sister Maggie. They were SNL players together and acted together in Adventureland. Hader (nominated for a Gotham Best Actor Award for this role) was last blogged in The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby and Wiig was mentioned in How to Train Your Dragon 2 and blogged with a link in Her. Luke Wilson (I liked and liked him in Bottle Rocket (1996), Rushmore (1998), Legally Blonde (2001), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Old School (2003), The Family Stone (2005), and 15 episodes of Enlightened) is playing his usual aw-shucks kind of regular guy but Ty Burrell (most recently the voice of Mr. Peabody in Mr. Peabody & Sherman) is outstanding in a supporting but pivotal role. Joanna Gleeson (I didn't know she's the daughter of Monty Hall! I enjoyed her work in Heartburn (1986), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), If These Walls Could Talk (1996), Boogie Nights (1997), The Wedding Planner (2001), and numerous TV appearances) explains a lot as the twins' mother. We saw it two weeks ago when it was in town for a short run.

Director Craig Johnson has made two other movies, one of which starred Mark Duplass who, with his brother Jay, last produced The Do-Deca-Pentathalon, which is about siblings as well. The Duplass Brothers are among the producers of this one and their twenty fingerprints are all over it. Johnson co-wrote the screenplay with Mark Heyman and it's Heyman's second feature (his first was Black Swan!). At Sundance early this year the script won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. I see more prizes in the future.

A short clip of the nice score by Nathan Larson (most recently scored Don Jon) can be sampled here--it says "soudntrack"--but no further links to the music can be found online. However, the pop songs can mostly be heard on this page. There's a lip-sync scene that is not to be missed.

In fact the whole movie is not to be missed. Rated 87% from critics and 83 from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, it is scheduled to be released on DVD December 15, 2015.