‘Dead Ringers’ series review: Rachel Weisz offers two compelling reasons to watch this medico-legal thriller

Rachel Weisz in a still from ‘Dead Ringers’
| Photo Credit: Prime Video

Though Dead Ringers is gorgeous and creepy, the true story it is inspired by is even more sinister. David Cronenberg’s 1988 film, that the mini-series is based on, takes inspiration from Bari Wood and Jack Geasland’s novel, Twins, a fictionalized account of the lives of twin gynaecologists, Stewart and Cyril Marcus, who died under mysterious circumstances at the age of 45 in July 1975.

In David Cronenberg’s feature, Jeremy Irons (again after Damage, which became the cringe-worthy Obsession) plays the twins, Elliot and Beverly Mantle. Rachel Weisz plays the twins in the series — the gender-neutral names make the flip easier and more confusing.

Elliot is the more outgoing twin. When we first see the two, her takedown of a slimy guy is savage. Beverly, on the other hand, is more timid and sensitive. She delivers the babies while Elliot is concerned with cutting-edge research, without much respect for the ethics of her actions, much to the dismay of Tom (Michael Chernus), her co-worker in more ways than one. Elliot has a cocaine habit and Beverly is desperate for a baby though every IVF attempt has turned out to be heartbreaking disappointments.

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The twins’ desire to be whole, implying there is an incompleteness to them is indicated in Beverly’s poignant comment to Elliot: “You always were a better me.” Elliot’s ravenous hunger for life is revealed in her constant eating and foreshadows Beverly realization of the need to subsume herself.

The twins want to revolutionise the way women give birth, as well as how it is perceived. As Beverly repeatedly says, “pregnancy is not a disease”. Rebecca Parker (Jennifer Ehle) with her generational wealth and privilege, as well as her profiteering from the opioid crisis, hardly makes her an altruistic investor, but if she is convinced the twins could make her more money, she could make their dream birth centre a reality.

Into this hectic environment comes actor Genevieve (Britne Oldford). She walks in for a consultation and Beverly falls deeply in love with her. Though Elliot first seduces Genevieve for Beverly, realizing how serious the relationship is, causes Elliot to spiral out of control.

The show is full of unsettling sequences from the house party at the Parkers with Susan (Emily Meade), Rebecca’s third wife, being terrifyingly sweet to the horrifying story of Anarcha (Brittany Bradford), who was “17 and enslaved” and operated upon non-consensually multiple times over five years without an anaesthetic.

There is also the super-efficient Greta (Poppy Liu), the twins’ housekeeper whose obsessive tidying up after Beverly and Elliot might have an ominous purpose. Is Elliot’s conversation with the homeless woman, Agnes (Susan Blommaert) on the roof, real or a product of her drug-addled mind? Agnes rather tellingly calls Elliot Two-Face dismissing her as being “erased into double negativity.”

There is a tension-filled birthday party for the twins, which their parents, Alan (Kevin McNally) and Linda (Suzanne Bertish), come from the UK to celebrate. The cancelled journalist, Silas (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine), is asked to write a puff piece but drawn into the terrible beauty of the twins’ world, writes a hard-hitting expose.

Dead Ringers is a difficult show to watch for the graphic visuals of giving birth. The colour scheme, with its predominance of red, points to the violence and blood of childbirth. While the show seems to meander, going down different rabbit holes, it is Weisz’s virtuoso performance as the twins that anchors it. Her doppelganger effect is so pitch-perfect that we, like everyone around her, are never quite sure which twin is which.

All that unsettling made me wonder whether the non-availability of episodes 2 to 5 was part of the effort to keep us off balance — it was not, at least I don’t think so.

Dead Ringers is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video