PLOT SUMMARY: Following a tragic event, Rachel and her family relocate to a small village. Soon she realizes her only surviving son may be in danger.
A good twist in the tale can actually enhance a movie. Even if it is of the slow burn variety.
The movie can meander on and to the unsuspecting viewer, everything seems pointless. And then the ending happens and everything makes sense.
Regardless of how slow-paced the movie was, the ending makes or breaks the movie eventually. If the ending isn't delivered properly and doesn't tie up the story into a neat little present, then the whole effort put into the movie is wasted.
A few rare gems will have a startling beginning, a thrilling middle and an even more exciting ending.
The Twin has a good enough beginning. As the movie progresses, the story takes a few twists and turns but you will still find yourself hooked. And then the ending happens...
And it doesn't fit with what you've seen so far.
THE TWIN Movie Plot
The movie begins with Rachel in a car when suddenly an accident occurs. In the next scene, she's at a hospital screaming when she learns her son Nathan died in the accident. Her husband Anthony is there to console her.
Rachel is obviously traumatised and has to see a psychiatrist. Together with her husband, it is decided that they move to a small village in Finland. For Anthony, it is homecoming.
The remaining twin, Elliot, is struggling with the death of his twin Nathan. But he still likes to run about the minute his mother takes her eyes off him. He clearly doesn't understand that his mother doesn't need to be anxious about him. Nope, he simply likes to run somewhere far and look for broken swings.
Then of all the places in the room, he chooses the attic for his bedroom. Rachel gives in but tells him he can come to her if he gets scared.
The next day, the family is invited to a party being held to welcome them. Anthony is busy meeting people, Elliot is running about while Rachel stands in a corner to eye all the grumpy locals. They do nothing but drink tea, look grumpy and stare at Rachel.
No one wants to approach her either except for an elderly woman called Helen who invites Rachel to take a walk with her outside.
Helen offers her condolences regarding the accident. She then invites Rachel to sit with her but Rachel is bored of spending time with an old woman with no interesting stories.
But Helen compensates by creeping her out by talking about strange and evil things plaguing her family. Rachel has had enough. She walks away only for Anthony to tell her that they must now partake in a ritual that involves them standing on a giant swing.
Rachel doesn't want to leave her son alone with strangers who speak a different language and may just be a little crazy. But Anthony presses on and she obliges.
They get on the swing and as usual Elliot is like, "nope, too boring for me. If I don't get to sit on the swing then off I go."
Rachel doesn't see her mischievous son and gets nervous. She wants to stop but Anthony is having too much fun on the swing. This is his only chance on the swing after all. The other ones near his house are broken and even if he manages to fix them, only a child can fit.
Rachel loses consciousness as scenes of the accident plays out. Luckily she falls forward and hangs on the railing rather than fall back and splat on the ground.
She lays on the ground and freaks out. Anthony has to row her back home and she is huddling Elliot who is covered in dirt. Elliot is usually seen covered in dirt. It's like he crawls out of the ground or something...
Soon enough Elliot starts playing with his imaginary friend and when Rachel tries to come in and see what is going on, her beloved son slams the door on her face. Rachel doesn't bother disciplining her spoilt kid.
He then begins to call himself Nathan and keeps digging up what looks like a maze game. Rachel keeps having nightmares about her dead son.
Anthony decides his family needs closure, and so decides they should have a funeral for Nathan.
They dig up a spot in the backyard, set up a grave and bury some of Nathan's things. Elliot buries the maze game.
For a while, everything seems like it has gone back to normal but Elliot keeps calling himself Nathan and even demands they put up a bed next to his with his twin's photo over it. At night, he crawls into the other bed.
Rachel runs about with her son during the day and the neighbors watch her oddly.
After another nightmare of fields and her in a funeral attire and rocks and blood, she goes to see her son and finds him on another bed. She picks him up and puts him on his bed only for him to keep telling her he's Nathan. Rachel finds a lump and realizes her son has dug up the maze game yet again.
She scolds him but he doesn't care. Eventually, she snatches the game from him and tosses it into the fireplace. Anthony calls to her and makes her some hot to drink so she can calm down.
Rachel confides her deepest feelings and regrets to him. In truth, she despised Nathan because he was a difficult child and she admits that a part of her was relieved he was gone although she does feel sad about losing a child. Anthony tries several times to stop her from "going there" but she still does. He hugs her and doesn't mind that her hot mug is pressing against him. Or maybe it isn't that hot. Or maybe there was nothing in the mug to begin with.
A few more chaotic things happen like Elliot finding the maze again, Rachel noticing her husband being weird, and the townspeople just staring at her. Eventually she goes to the only local who wants to talk to her—Helen.
Helen has her own crazy story to narrate. She fills Rachel's head with how a church is never allowed to be built here and whenever someone tries to, it is burned to the ground. She shows her diagrams and drawings of pagan rituals and how the lake has the same design as a pagan symbol to summon the devil. Helen claims she can sense that the devil has his sights set on her son. She also tells Rachel that her husband was possessed and had to be restrained by the townspeople and that he big his tongue and grinned with blood smeared on his teeth. She shows him a photo she took of him and it shows her husband is blurred.
Rachel decides to do a little photography herself because that was what she used to do once upon time. She finds Elliot on a swing and begins taking photos of him. Elliot practically screams to stop it, gets off the swing and storms off. There goes his childish fun.
Rachel doesn't use a digital camera and so must rely on a photo studio to get the photos.
At night, Elliot calls out to her and tells her Anthony isn't going to wake up and she needs to come with him because Nathan wants to meet her. She goes downstairs and Elliot has a mirror set up that he shows her and tells her that she's going to see Nathan in it. She looks closely and is stunned when she sees someone evil. The mirror cracks.
She turns around and her husband is there along with a man from the village. They subdue her when she becomes frantic and she's injected.
The next day she wakes up thinking that it was all a dream and then is puzzled by the mirror pieces in the trash. When Elliot continues to act weird, the family goes to see a psychologist. Anthony and the doctor talk in the local language and appear to be conspiring. Rachel demands to know what it is and the doctor vaguely mentions that she is projecting what she is feeling and pretending her son is feeling the same. Furious that he try to psychoanalyze her rather than counsel her son, she storms off with Elliot in tow. The locals who have come to visit the psychiatrist watch on with the only expression they have worn since the beginning: nothingness.
Before they leave, Rachel makes an excuse to go shopping and instead goes to pick up the photos.
She lies to her husband about not finding anything to shop for and then rushes home and locks herself in the bathroom to check the photos. To her surprise, there is no one on the swing.
Elliot demands his mother open the door and when she does he insists upon seeing the photos. But how did he know about the photos?
The plot thickens and surely the climax is going to be a thrilling ride, right?
Anyway, she goes over to Helen and practically throws the photos on her face claiming that her son has disappeared and suspecting that maybe Nathan has returned. Helen agrees with her because she likes to believe in possessions and that the grumpy locals are actually evil.
She comes to Rachel's house, sees Elliot and claims Rachel is sick. Rachel follows her to convince her otherwise but finds her husband with the locals all watching her.
Helen screams and Rachel is subdued once again.
This time, she wakes up to find herself in ceremonial robes. She is held down while Anthony walks over to a bound Elliot and slits his throat. The blood is collected and smeared on her belly which becomes quickly pregnant. Anthony claims he always wanted Nathan and not Elliot.
Rachel's screaming falls on deaf ears. She wakes up later and of course she isn't pregnant anymore. She hears whispering. Elliot is calling out for her.
She finds him tied and locked up in a chest, still in the robes. She starts to leave with him when Anthony comes in and is forced to reveal the truth.
THE TWIN Ending Explained with Spoilers!
Anthony tells Rachel that she never had twins. She had one son Nathan that died and to cope with the loss, she invented a son because it made her happy.
Anthony let her live in her delusions for a while because he thought Rachel would heal from that.
But the neighbors began to complain about having Rachel run around like a crazy person pretending to play with her son.
She was then committed to a mental institution where Anthony felt like he had lost Rachel again because she was told Elliot didn't exist.
Anthony let's her believe Elliot does exist and they lie to the doctors about her healing so that she is let go. Anthony decides to relocate so that the family had a fresh start but Rachel kept getting lost in her delusions.
He asks her to look around and see that Elliot doesn't exist. Rachel doesn't see him for a while but then does and we wonder if Anthony concocted this elaborate lie.
Anthony keeps trying to convince her and Rachel keeps not believing him. They run around a bit through the woods until the end up at a grain storage facility.
When Rachel is still not ready to believe that Elliot is a figment of her imagination, Anthony sees where she is looking and then pulls the lever to spill the grains.
Rachel is shocked and pushes Anthony away, inadvertently pushing him off the railing. Anthony falls on the ground with a splat and ruins the grains.
Rachel frantically searches for her son but doesn't find him. She stares at her husband and realizes he was telling the truth. She is delusional.
In the next scene, she has returned back to the city and burying her husband.
Depressed, she imagines her family in the car with both Elliot and Nathan sitting in the backseat. She's happy again and quite delusional and possibly dangerous again.
The movie ends.
THE TWIN has some great moment in the beginning and the mystery is exciting and we do believe that something like the MIDSOMMAR or The Wicker Man is going on here in this quiet little village.
The ending is a twist but it takes it so far from the story that it appears to stick out rather than tie up the story neatly.
There was so much build-up about where the story was headed and the ending fizzles out.
Some of it makes sense, like whenever Rachel was even a little bit happy, Elliot would disappear but her dependence on him to cure her depression kept bringing him back.
Helen's craziness is meant to confuse but in the end she too calls Rachel sick and breaks ties with her.
The villagers all carried a single expression.
These elements worked against the movie which had so much potential.
Scare Scale: 3/5
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