It’s beginning to be a useful rule of thumb that the also-ran nominees in the best foreign language Oscar category should be given a wide berth. Case in point: “Twin Sisters,” a drama of the World War II era from Holland.
This is strictly TV-movie time. We begin in 1925, in Germany, with a devastating event. When the parents of 6-year-old twin daughters are killed, the girls are divided between hostile sides of the family.
Lotte is taken away to the Netherlands to be cared for by well-to-do cousins, where she can have piano lessons and read novels on the grounds of the estate. Anna is hauled off to live with uncle and aunt on a German farm, where she feeds slop to pigs.
They write to each other, but the letters are seized by their guardians. Still, their deeply held bond survives even after years of isolation.
In the film’s most effective scenes, they reunite – but, alas, on the eve of war. The Nazi nightmare is encroaching when Lotte (Thekla Reuten) goes to visit Anna (Nadja Uhl), who works as a servant in the mansion of a Hitler-loving socialite.
A stray, seemingly anti-Semitic comment by Anna drives a wedge between the sisters again, and the story winds its unhappy way through war and Holocaust. Meanwhile, we see the elderly Lotte and Anna, who have run into each other at a spa in the present day.
This film is based on a novel by Tessa de Loo that was a monster bestseller in Holland and Germany. The wounds from that era remain, and the book poked at them.
Well, fine, but the movie doesn’t get beneath the surface of the skin. Along with his pedestrian style, director Ben Sombogaart stumbles into every hoary cliche of the WWII genre. And the whole movie has an Oprah-style approach to forgiveness that sits uncomfortably with the fact that one of the sisters marries an SS officer (who of course is characterized as a reluctant Nazi).
Not all TV movies are bad, and “Twin Sisters” isn’t torture. But it never rises above the ordinary, whereas the subject demands more.
“Twin Sisters” H
Standard: Twin girls are separated in youth – one to live in Germany, one in Holland – and come of age as the Nazi nightmare arrives. A nominee for best foreign language film, this one doesn’t rise above the level of a TV movie. (In Dutch and German, with English subtitles.)
Rated: R rating is for nudity, subject matter.
Now showing: Harvard Exit.
“Head-On” HHH
Dark: A German-Turkish woman in Hamburg convinces a self-destructive older man to marry her, because she wants to move out of her parents’ house. A provocative picture that gets darker as its goes along. (In German and Turkish, with English subtitles.)
Rated: Not rated; probably R for nudity, violence.
Now showing: Varsity.
“Twin Sisters” H
Standard: Twin girls are separated in youth – one to live in Germany, one in Holland – and come of age as the Nazi nightmare arrives. A nominee for best foreign language film, this one doesn’t rise above the level of a TV movie. (In Dutch and German, with English subtitles.)
Rated: R rating is for nudity, subject matter.
Now showing: Harvard Exit.
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