Film Review: The Silent Twins succeeds a little too well in recreating a self-contained world

The Silent Twins is based on a true story.

★★★☆☆

Based on a true story, The Silent Twins (16s) opens in 1960s Wales, with young June and Jennifer Gibbons refusing to speak or engage with the wider world. Moved to special education from the school where they are bullied, and despite the best efforts of the educational psychologist, Tim Thomas (Michael Smiley), June (Letitia Wright) and Jennifer (Tamara Lawrence) grow ever more insular, a symbiotic unit spending their lives in their bedroom writing exotic stories and communicating in their own distinct patois.

Adolescence brings complications, and when June and Jennifer are both attracted to American tearaway Wayne (Jack Bandeira), tragedy follows.

The Silent Twins was adapted from a book written by an investigative journalist.

Adapted from a book written by the investigative journalist, Marjorie Wallace (Jodhi May), Agnieszka Smoczynska’s film is a fascinating blend of the prosaic (the grim monotony of the girls’ bedroom-based life) and the fantastical (animated sequences illustrating the richly vivid stories they write). It’s an imaginative and occasionally disturbing account of a passive refusal to play the game of life according to the established rules of engagement, the downside to which, is that Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrence — both excellent — succeed a little too well in recreating June and Jennifer’s self-contained world, as the intensity of their love-hate relationship tends to alienate everyone else, viewer included.

(cinema release)