If you haven’t heard about the twins June and Jennifer Gibbons, this is a story you don’t want to miss. The newly released film “Silent Twins” recounts the remarkable lives of June and Jennifer Gibbons, played by Letitia Wright (of Black Panthers) and Tamara Lawrance. Growing up in Wales in the 1970s and 1980s, the girls decided (by the age of 8) to turn inward, creating a private universe while refusing to communicate with the outside world.
Borrowing from Marjorie Wallace’s book “The Silent Twins” Andrea Siegel wrote an extraordinary screenplay that explored all aspects of the girls’ lives—the hardship, their imagination, their yearnings, and most of all, their love for each other. Siegel then reached out to the acclaimed Polish director Agnieszka Smoczynska to bring her script to life.
An alumnus of the prestigious Krzysztof Kieslowski Film School in Katowice, Smoczynska’s first feature “The Lure,” a magical tale of mermaid sisters in a Warsaw cabaret, won the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Unique Vision & Design at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. She brought that same fantastical imagination and style to create “The Silent Twins.”
The film takes you through the unusual lives of the twins. The girls were unpredictable. They would attend class by walking in synchronization, mirroring each other’s steps, and coming to a silent stop with no explanation. They could crumple to the floor if questioned, again in perfect unison. They were effectively mute at school but not always quiet. Intense bursts of physical fighting could erupt between June and Jennifer, seemingly with little warning. By the age of eight, the twins had stopped communicating with the outside world.
In the relative safety of their bedroom, June and Jennifer invited the creative world in. They made dolls and stuffed toys, which became characters in elaborate plays that they wrote together. They broadcast a radio show to themselves, they called Radio Gibbons: The Living Facts of Life. They developed what was originally taken to be a secret language, later revealed to be a mix of Barbadian slang and fast-spoken English; when they did speak, there was a lisp, a speech impediment.
The twins behaved this way for years, confounding their family and the Welsh education system, which led to their referral to a child psychologist, Tim Thomas. Dedicated therapy followed, along with a short-lived attempt to separate the twins at two different schools. Nothing appeared to be working, much to the frustration and desperation of their family. The girls remained silent and uncommunicative in public, and their strange behavior continued. After completing a writing course by post, their creative skills were being developed through more intricate plays and written stories… the film is currently in theaters and streaming on Peacock.
**********
Thank you for reading Yanina Carter’s article on scoopnewsusa.com. For more on “Silent Twins: A True Story brought to the screen”, please subscribe to SCOOP USA Media. Print subscriptions are $75 and online subscriptions (Print, Digital, and VIZION) are $90. (52 weeks / 1 year).
