The reimagining, starring Rachel Weisz as twin gynaecologists Beverly and Eliot Mantle, hits Prime Video this Friday.
David Cronenberg's work is so singularly branded by his weird fetishes for body mutation and sexual kinks that taking on and reimagining his work is going to invite all kinds of problems.
His work is defined by extremes, so how can they possibly be topped? 'Dead Ringers', released in 1988 with Jeremy Irons in the role now occupied by Rachel Weisz, was a stylish and austere psychosexual thriller about control and decadence. Yet, in 2023, so much of what was there to be examined and ignored is now starkly relevant. What's more, swapping out a man for a woman in the lead role is equally relevant. Much of the first three episodes of 'Dead Ringers' is devoted to setting up the world and the ambitions of Doctors Eliot and Beverly Mantle.
The opening episode, for example, gives a brutally realistic view of the industrial nature of modern maternity wards - women are carted in, their guts are reworked, babies pop out, and it's on to the next one. It's difficult to imagine deriving humour from that concept, but one scene sees Rachel Weisz trying to massage the stomach of a surrogate to turn the child beneath - while she's fielding questions from the rich, self-centred woman to whom the surrogate is working for. Frequently in 'Dead Ringers', the ultra-rich are treated and act like bizarre aliens and when they enter their world to seek funding for their birthing centre, the humour and the strangeness intensifies.
As you'd expect, Rachel Weisz's performance in the twin roles of Dr. Beverly and Eliot Mantle is simply incredible. It's so much more subtle than simply playing it as one as an evil twin and one as a good twin, and frequently, you find that both are gifted and hobbled in different ways. One is impulsive but bold, and the other is passive but considered. Physically, they look the same, but the subtleties go far beyond their hairdos and their personal habits. The way in which episodes directors like Sean Durkin and Karyn Kusama present them on screen is fascinating. It's so real, so unbelievably real, that you never once suspect any kind of trickery or camera shenanigans.
As it's a remake of a David Cronenberg movie, there is horror and goriness aplenty, but it's in a far more restrained and ultimately stylish way. There's plenty of weirdness and disturbing imagery, but there's a refinement to it that gives it more impact. The lush score and the '80s-inflected soundtrack all add to the desperately cool ambience that surrounds 'Dead Ringers', and that's not even before it gets into how fiendishly clever it is when it comes to dealing with the thorny subjects of women's reproductive rights, capitalism and medicine, transhumanism and medical advancements, and beyond.
There are times when it loses itself to vagueness when it's clearly attempting ambiguity, and it can often seem like some threads in the story ran out of material before they could be effectively woven together. Nevertheless, 'Dead Ringers' is grown-up, uber-stylish TV that deserves and demands attention - and will definitely get it.