Review: Twin Falls Idaho (1999)
Firstly, “Twin Falls Idaho” goes for the too cute punning movie title, sort of along the lines of “Good Will Hunting” being side-swiped by a certain David Lynch TV series. Once we get over this fact, groaning if necessary, we have a neat little indie movie with a certain Lynchian spirit of the ordinary grotesque; I don’t think the title’s allusion to “Twin Peaks” is coincidental. Ignore it’s occassional obviousness, like we see in the title: the film is worth seeing.
The basic plot of the film involves an archetypal hooker with a heart of gold, named Penny in this case, going to a seedy hotel to meet her next john. This john isn’t Richard Gere, come to rescue her from her troubles; this john turns out to be the conjoined Falls twins. Freaky.
Certainly Penny thought so, as she panics and leaves as they’re in the bathroom politely getting her a glass of water. Realizing her purse was left in the room, she sheepishly goes back to claim it, and finds that the twins are busy having a quiet birthday celebration for themselves. With this sad scene, we begin the strange friendship that turns into a love story between Penny and Blake, the stronger of the twins.
Here and there, the “twins” and “pairs” images and puns are a little strong and unnecessary. Yes, we get the picture: the twins are a particular entity, and separation would destroy them. Perhaps the most heavy-handed image is when the twins are in public, drying to reach their hotel room during daylight: they sit down, exhausted with their flight, and a crowd gathers around them to take pictures of this spectacle of Siamese twins. Yes, the bars represent how zoo-like the scene is, and how the twins are treated by most of us as animals, not humans. We get it.
Along with the love story, a love story in which the two lovers can never be alone, the film develops the twisted family relationship of the twins. Their mother abandoned them; they are brothers that can never be apart; and so on. The notion of solitude and the unending lack thereof is, of course, a central theme. The movie is primarily a series of quiet conversations between the twins and Penny — the twins themselves speak to each other in whispers — exploring these ideas. The set-piece exception is a Halloween party Penny takes them to: the twins are simply “in costume” there, and can move around in the open without stares. There, of course, is another of the heavy-handed images, where another pair of costumed Siamese “twins” get fed up with each other and split up.
Ultimately the story moves in this direction. In the film’s last act, Francis, the weaker twin, falls mortally ill, and it becomes clear that the twins will have to undergo their own separation. The split is final: Francis won’t survive the operation. The dreamy sequence showing this works well, far better than any of the other more obvious symbols the film tosses at us. I feel that it’s the climax of the film, though there is a nice, bucolic coda that follows, tying up the lose ends.
Overall, despite my harping on the film’s occasional heavy-handedness, I liked the film. Certainly it’s different from the usual, action-laden summer flick. Further, the twins are each fully realized individuals, nothing like stock evil-twin-good-twins or angry-at-world-misfits from Central Screenwriting. Real people. And the pace is slow: it allows you to savor the characters the Polish brothers have created here, the appreciate the strangeness of the situation.