DEAD RINGERS (1988)
Starring Jeremy Irons and Jeremy Irons
Absolutely incredible film may be Cronenberg's masterpiece. Irons plays a pair of gynecologist twins who have set up the most successful practice of its kind in Canada. The two men share women too. Watching the film, it's almost impossible to tell that the two characters were played by one man. Irons deserved an Oscar for this performance, but he didn't get one until playing Claus von Bulow in "Reversal of Fortune" two years later. When he accepted his award for that film, he thanked Cronenberg—not just "Reversal of Fortune" director Barbet Schroeder.
Although the "Dead
Ringers" twins he portrays look alike, one is slicker and more manipulative than the
other. A rift is created in their relationship when the nerdier and more honest of the two
falls in love with a beautiful, film-actress patient. A downward spiral results for both
brothers, bringing about drug addiction, psychotic behavior and finally murder. Cronenberg
captures painfully embarrassing moments, as one brother shows up drunk and disorderly to a
black-tie presentation and the other asks a patient if she's ever slept with a dog.
Subtle, darkly humorous and horrifying in its depiction of the onset of mental illness in two twins at once, this is easily Cronenberg's best movie. Propelled by the critical and box-office success of "The Fly," this was exactly the kind of film only Cronenberg could make—and he was finally given the budget and total creative freedom to pull off his vision.
His later films would all fall out of the splatter genre completely, attempting to appeal solely to the arthouse crowd, and would never match the excellence of "Dead Ringers," arguably one of the greatest horror films ever made.