Review: Rachel Weisz convinces in Dead Ringers as twins, sisters are each terrifying in their own way | show

Rachel Weisz now plays the female version of the same roles in a six-part television version of Dead Ringers with different accents by screenwriter Alice Birch, who previously wrote the critically acclaimed television drama Normal People (2020).

The gynecologists are now Eliott and Beverly Mantle. They work in the maternity ward of a large hospital in New York, where they alternate constantly without the patients noticing. But just like Irons in 1988, Weisz also switches love partners as twins. Only with a difference. The domineering Eliott likes men, while the timid Beverly prefers women. But that matters little. Yes, if there is jealousy, because how lucky is one half of the twins to her image?

Weisz gives the viewer some guidance in keeping the duo apart by giving her twins a different haircut. Beverly wears her hair in a bun, while her sister usually lets it hang loose.

But that difference does not alter the fact that the twins sometimes switch roles, which only increases the intended confusion for the audience.

An important plot line in this Dead Ringers is the great ambition of the two to set up a futuristic medical center to make giving birth as pleasant and comfortable as possible for women. An incidental factor, however, is that the financiers of their project seem to have different motives than the sisters.

Gradually, the character differences of Beverly and Eliott start to wring. Which of the two is the strongest? Can one live without the other? These are questions that make this series exceptionally fascinating to the end.

And how does Weisz fare? She is completely convincing in both interpretations. The two sisters are each terrifying in their own way. One is straightforward, the other looks like still water with deep grounds. But how reliable are they? Also against each other?

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