In case you’ve missed it, I’m currently serialising a new novel – KEMBERTON – more or less as I’m writing. It’s available free to all newsletter subscribers (if you’re not on the list, click here), with new chapters being added monthly. The next batch will be available to read early next week.
The titular star of the story is a young lad who suffers with SELECTIVE MUTISM. It’s a subject I’ve written about previously, and it’s something that’s very close to my heart. Our youngest daughter had SM, so as a family we have first-hand experience of how difficult a condition it can be. It’s an often misunderstood anxiety disorder, characterised by the child only speaking in specific circumstances and to certain people. We’re very grateful that, with a huge amount of support from family members, friends, teachers and other professionals, our daughter talked after 9 years of silence. These days, more than 15 years later, SM is more widely known about. In fact, there was an article on the BBC website about it just this week.
So on that theme, this week’s film recommendation is THE SILENT TWINS, a superb dramatisation of a remarkable true story about a set of twins growing up in the UK in the 1980’s who were selectively mute. SM is hard enough on the sufferer and the people closest to them. In this case, though, the situation was compounded by the fact that the twins became each other’s dependent. The rest of the world was shut out as a result, and their intertwined lives became increasingly fantastical and self-destructive.
Based on the lives of June and Jennifer Gibbons, real-life twins who grew up in Wales, part of the only black family in a small town. The two became known as “the silent twins” because of their refusal to communicate with anyone other than each other. They developed their own language and became catatonic when separated. The story takes place after a spree of vandalism inspired by an American boy they both idolise, when the girls, now teenagers, are sentenced to Broadmoor, an infamous psychiatric hospital where they face the choice to separate and survive or die together.
When you meet someone who has SM, it’s easy to make the assumption they’re either being intentionally difficult, or they’re not capable of understanding you. The reality is usually neither – they’re often young people who have otherwise developed normally, but just happen to have a phobia of speaking in most situations and to most people. As I mentioned, when our daughter was diagnosed, the condition wasn’t particularly widely discussed. In the 1980’s, it was all but unheard of. When you factor in to that the social and economic issues of the UK at that time, it’s clear the odds were stacked against the Gibbons twins from the outset. With little in the way of outside help, and with only each other to confide in, it’s little surprise that they developed a very insular and specific view of the world and everyone else in it, exacerbated by the fact they were clearly both intelligent and highly creative. When their behaviour was reported to a school psychologist, it was the first step in a downward spiral of therapists, boarding schools, and ultimately incarceration in Broadmoor.
This is a fascinating film. It’s a bleak and uncomfortable watch (though I fully accept my daughter’s experiences inevitably affected my reaction to it). The twins’ story is told with real care and attention, with most events shown from their perspective. Excellent use is made of their writings to engage us and to take us deeper into their closed-off world which, unlike the real world that struggles to reach them, is filled with colour and light and fantastic made up stories.
THE SILENT TWINS won’t be for everyone, but I wanted to recommend it here because of the connection with KEMBERTON. June and Jennifer’s story is tragic, but in some respects it’s ultimately uplifting. Their case achieved notoriety thanks to a series of articles by Sunday Times journalist MARJORIE WALLACE, who went on to write the book upon which the film is based. AGNIESZKA SMOCZYNKA directs a cast which includes LETITIA WRIGHT (who also starred as Shuri in the BLACK PANTHER films) as June and TAMARA LAWRENCE as Jennifer.
The film is all the more remarkable because it’s true. If you’re interested, surviving twin June features in a BBC podcast series, VOICE OF A SILENT TWIN. THE SILENT TWINS is currently streaming on NETFLIX.
The next chapters of KEMBERTON will be available free to all newsletter subscribers next week. To join the list, click here.
