Werner Herzog's latest film, "Bucking Fastard," presents a unique episodic drama inspired by the unusual real-life tale of Yorkshire twins Freda and Greta Chaplin, who famously exhibited synchronized behavior. The film delves into codependence and the experience of sheltered adults venturing into the world for the first time. While its conclusion may not fully deliver on its intended impact, "Bucking Fastard" is described as fantastical and worthwhile, carrying a strange and wistful tone that occasionally verges on the surreal, even dedicating its opening titles to David Lynch.
The casting and direction of such an idiosyncratic project were significant challenges. Sisters Kate and Rooney Mara portray Jean and Joan Holbrooke, American siblings who, despite clarifying they are not twins but sisters, find their parallel careers converging in Herzog's film. The narrative opens with the sisters on trial in Ireland for stalking and harassing their neighbor, Mr. Mulroney, whom they claim to be in love with. The low stakes of a restraining order, rather than a criminal conviction, allow the story to explore their obsessions through flashbacks.
From the outset, the dynamic between the Mara sisters is a highlight, with their overlapping dialogue, shared glances, and wry smiles captivating the audience. However, it also becomes apparent that the Holbrookes possess a profoundly limited understanding of the world, even as they attempt to assert their sexual independence. Their antiquated manner of speaking, moving, and dressing obscures the film's time period, though the appearance of an iPhone approximately thirty minutes in places the story in the 21st century.
Herzog, who met the real twins, eschews a traditional biographical approach. Instead, he imagines the isolation and self-loathing that might have defined their adult lives, portraying them as women so attuned to each other that functioning apart or communicating with the outside world proved difficult. The film imbues his fictional characters with a naiveté that leaves them vulnerable to the intentions of the men they encounter, creating an undercurrent of uncertainty when they venture beyond their secluded existence. The film touches upon prevalent tropes in male-dominated culture where twins and women are often depicted as either menacing or sexually alluring.
As the film shifts from the trial to the sisters' attempts at living independently, albeit only with each other, the tone becomes more subdued. "Bucking Fastard" offers scant details of their past, instead constructing its drama from oblique references to a complicated upbringing by absent parents. The absence of genuine love and acceptance from their family significantly shapes the Holbrookes' perceptions and their misunderstanding of their own emotions, despite the purity of those feelings. They are presented as outsiders, twin souls reliant solely on each other due to societal rejection.
The film finds its most poignant moments when the sisters relocate to the Irish countryside. A visit to their ailing aunt Louise and an encounter with her neighbor, the elderly shepherd McFarlane, prompts Jean and Joan to reflect more deeply on their desires from humanity and what they receive in return. Though the answers are not always favorable, this setting offers a poetic sense of escape, sparked by a local legend about a nearby cave, which resonates with them despite their limited capacity to fully comprehend its fictional nature.
Herzog captures a bittersweet vitality of life through a blend of still, painterly scenes and unsettling close-ups. While the film's abstract elements do not culminate in a profound catharsis or enlightenment, concluding instead on a surprising downturn, Herzog's gentle portrayal of two women ostracized by the world offers a compelling mix of amusement and touching sincerity, resembling a mature fairy tale about the universal yearning for connection. "Bucking Fastard" does not yet have a release date.