Dead Ringers (2023 remake) miniseries rings all the right bells

I don’t think this got talked about enough. I don’t think this got the attention it deserved. And to be clear, this deserves a lot of attention.
We live in the day and age of remakes, most of which are unnecessary. Dead Ringers isn’t just a remake, it’s a reinvention. In fact, it goes so far above and beyond the limitations of Cronenberg’s original, it almost makes you forget it ever existed at all.
Let’s face it—remakes are by and large a reflection of a creative stagnation. When studios have nothing new to say, they dust off the old successes and revamp them for new audiences.
And every so often, you get surprised, nay, dazzled, by a marvel like this.
Rachel Weisz (one of my all-time favorites and reliable excellent) has been doing such extremely interesting movies lately, which is no small task in business where it’s a struggle for a woman to remain relevant at all after a certain age. She is the mastermind and the beating heart behind this mini-series production, and while her behind-the-scenes work is obvious in brilliant choice of writers, etc., it’s difficult to think of that (or any other things for that matter) once she is on screen playing the infamous twins.
It truly is a career-making performance.  Yes, the technology has come a long way to make acting beside yourself seamless, but there’s more to it than that. There is an innate skill—a mastery—at bringing to life two characters so different and yet so similar, in all of their splendid disfunction.
In a song, this would be “I can’t live with or without you.” Their codependency is that profound. It goes well beyond right and wrong, well beyond social conventions or even science. Every boundary is pushed as the plot careens toward its inevitable devastating ending.
And as both the brazen, wild twin and the brilliant, mild one, Rachel Weisz will sock you, delight you, and break your heart over and over again.
On screen, she is magnetic. No matter the line—and she is given some spectacular lines here.
The production is likely too disturbing to be binge-worthy, but at the same time, it’s difficult to look away.
Blood-red in dress and style, visceral and incisive, this is purely brilliant.
And oh so clever, too, in what it says about the way the modern society regards and treats women: the barbaric regulations and obscene expectations.
I’m not usually a fan of didactic narratives as they tend to overwhelm the plot, but Dead Ringers does it exactly right, with marvelous subtlety.
There’s so much more I can say about how much I loved this, how it stayed with me long after watching, and so on, but in service of succinctness, I’ll stay with this—watch this. Do yourself a favor, watch this and be reminded of what quality entertainment ought to be like.
It’s one of the best things I’ve seen in a long, long time. Recommended.