Milo (Bill Hader) is being yelled at by his caretaker, host, and sister Maggie (Kristen Wiig) for being last for work. After a suicide attempt, Milo goes to stay with his estranged sister, where she gets him a job with her husband. She tells Milo that he needs "to get his shit together," then screams into her couch pillow. Her frustration isn't really with her brother, but with herself, as she just impulsively slept with her scuba instructor (Boyd Hollbrook.) She hopes that people can change, and if Milo can get his life back on track, then she certainly can. Milo decides to cut the tension and distract Maggie the best way he knows: a lip-sync to Starship's "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Know."
This scene is not only my favorite musical moment of the year, but it also highlights the message and tone of the The Skeleton Twins. The film is surprisingly very heavy and somber at time. It starts off with Milo slitting his wrist in his California apartment. Thousands of miles away, Maggie is facing a hand full of pills, contemplating the same. Only does receiving a call about Milo's condition does she snap out of it and halts her attempt.
It's moments like this that made me question what I got myself into. Then I remember that this is Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader. Wiig seems to be going against the obvious comedic route and instead go for starring roles which involves a woman in a mid-life crisis. This is Hader's first real stab at dramatic work, and his performance as the depressed, gay Milo shows off his range. The two definitely have the chemistry to carry the movie, even during the weaker parts of the film. There is some melodramatic declarations of family relations that push the film into TV-movie territory ("I'm your sister! I'm suppose to take care of you!" That kind of thing.)
Wiig, Hader, co-writer and director Craig Johnson, sometimes goes too far the other way. There is suppose to be the sense that Milo and Maggie share similar humor and inside jokes, but instead we get two improv geniuses. Johnson reins the two in most of the time, but you can tell that he loses control of them at time, particularly when Milo and Maggie take nitrous oxide at her office.
This is not to say that the humor isn't appropriate for the characters. The two are interconnected souls who need each other in their life. Their close bond formed after their father's death, leaving them to fend for themselves while living with a self-centered mother. Despite their relationship, they've had little contact with each other in the last ten years, and the sum of their life without each other has totaled to disappointment. Milo moved to L.A. to be an actor, but the only jobs he get is in the food industry. Maggie married the sweet yet safe Lance (adorable Luke Wilson). Lance is best described by Milo as a "Labrador Retriever". While Lance would be the perfect husband for most people, Maggie is having an existential crisis. They say that they're trying to start a family, but Maggie is secretly taking birth control pills for two reasons: she doesn't want to have children with Lance, and she's been having rampant, hasty affairs. These hidden feelings take their toll on Maggie, which lead to her suicidal thoughts at the beginning of the film.
Maggie's secret depression adds to an curious twist to Milo's recovery. She goes about their relationship as if he's the broken one, but this is only due to the fact that his skeleton's are all laid out on the table. During his recovery in small-town New York, he tries to rekindle his relationship with his first love and former high school English teacher, Rich (Ty Burrell), a secret Milo can't reveal as Maggie was the one who got Rich fired from his teaching position long ago.
The siblings cause each other much pain and frustration, but this is only because they are so much alike. They clash only because they are cut from the same cloth. They compartmentalize their emotions so as to not disappoint each other, but they only seem to find solace when they open up.
The Skeleton Twins is much like an Alexander Payne film. It features small town people with big city dreams and the resentment that comes when these aspirations don't materialize. Still, the movie is just as sweet as it is heart-rending. These characters will drag the other out of their personal caves with fart jokes. All they need to do is get on the same page. As the song says, "Let the world around us just fall apart. Baby, we can make it if we're heart to heart."
Maggie's secret depression adds to an curious twist to Milo's recovery. She goes about their relationship as if he's the broken one, but this is only due to the fact that his skeleton's are all laid out on the table. During his recovery in small-town New York, he tries to rekindle his relationship with his first love and former high school English teacher, Rich (Ty Burrell), a secret Milo can't reveal as Maggie was the one who got Rich fired from his teaching position long ago.
The siblings cause each other much pain and frustration, but this is only because they are so much alike. They clash only because they are cut from the same cloth. They compartmentalize their emotions so as to not disappoint each other, but they only seem to find solace when they open up.
The Skeleton Twins is much like an Alexander Payne film. It features small town people with big city dreams and the resentment that comes when these aspirations don't materialize. Still, the movie is just as sweet as it is heart-rending. These characters will drag the other out of their personal caves with fart jokes. All they need to do is get on the same page. As the song says, "Let the world around us just fall apart. Baby, we can make it if we're heart to heart."
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