DOUBLE VISION
THE SILENT TWINS A pair of siblings build their own secret world in this moving drama.
Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance may be inseparable in their latest film, a fact-based drama about twin sisters who declined to engage with the world around them and instead constructed an intricate, secret universe. But when Teasers meets them in Cannes, only Wright was present, with Lawrance and their Polish director, Agnieszka Smoczyńska, joining via Zoom.
This doesn’t stop them posing for a collective selfie, though – a testament to bonds forged bringing June and Jennifer Gibbons’ poignant story to the screen. “They created a cocoon around themselves, a protective shell,” explains Lawrance, who plays Jennifer in the film. “It gave them a space where they were understood, which was by each other. Letitia and I are obviously different people, with different body types, so it was extremely important for us to create a shared physical language. We also had an amazing dialect coach who helped us embody their speech impediment as well as honour their Barbadian heritage.”
Born to West Indian parents who emigrated to Britain as part of the Windrush generation, June and Jennifer were isolated children who mirrored each other’s actions and refused to
communicate with others. Bullied and ostracised at their school in Wales, they grew up to become troubled adolescents who, after some petty thefts and arson, were heartlessly sent to Broadmoor psychiatric hospital.
“They lost so many years they could never get back at the beginning stages of their lives,” says Wright, who plays June and also acted as one of the film’s producers. “It just goes to show that if we as a society don’t pay close attention to what someone may need, we can alter their lives forever. When people watch the film I hope they see them in a newfound way and that their joy and creativity is celebrated. And I pray they take away with them an understanding of what life can do to two teenage girls who are misunderstood.”
“I think they were exiled because they were sensitive and artists,” says Smoczyńska, who also dealt with sisterhood in her 2015 mermaid fantasy The Lure. “I wanted to show their imagination and how amazing their stories were.” June and Jennifer were budding writers who wrote plays for their childhood toys and later submitted novels and stories to various publishers. In The Silent Twins, these fanciful narratives are acted out in elaborate dream sequences and delightful stop-motion animations. “The songs and animations were not in Andrea Seigel’s script when I read it,” Smoczyńska continues. “But I liked that she wanted to dive deeper and I wanted to follow her. I thought, ‘Let’s use this. Let’s show they were artists like the Brontë sisters.’”
‘I wanted to show their imagination and how amazing their stories were’ AGNIESZKA SMOCZYŃSKA