Based on the 1988 movie that goes by the same name, Dead Ringers is a blood-filled psychological thriller that portrays the story of two twins that hope to change the world of gynecology forever. Since we’ll be seeing Dead Ringers’ ending explained, this is your spoiler warning.
It was a case of real-life twins back in the 70s that inspired Bari Wood to write a novel called Twins. David Cronenberg masterfully crafted the novel into a movie that can still be considered a hit within its genre.
Alice Birch, who serves as the developer for this Prime Video Series, expressed her love for the original but said her movie had a different world of its own, with its own characters and a personalized ending.
Rachel Weisz stars in a double role as both Beverly and Elliot Mantle. The sisters can be easily differentiated by their hairstyles and personality. Beverly is shy & reserved and wears her hair in a sleek hairstyle.
Elliot, on the other hand, is outgoing and extroverted, making her the wild one of the pair. Other cast members besides Rachel Weisz include Britne Oldford as Genevieve, Poppy Liu as Greta, Jennifer Ehle as Rebecca, and Michael Chemus in the role of Tom.
Dead Ringers: The Plot
The movie begins with the Mantle sisters working continuously to deliver babies and take care of pregnant women. While out on a dinner, they talk about their plans for opening their birthing center and are looking for investors.
They meet Rebecca and Susan, an extremely wealthy couple that eventually becomes their investor in the project.
Beverly hopes to make an easily accessible birthing center where women would be treated as “guests” and not patients with a disease. Elliot wants to open her lab, where she could carry out all kinds of unethical and illegal experiments that make things like delaying menopause and growing a baby without a womb possible.
Their life, however, takes a dark turn as Elliot starts feeling jealous of Beverly’s relationship with Genevieve, a movie star. The separation of the Mantle sisters causes pain for both of them, but Elliot’s wrongdoings are exposed by Silas, giving Beverly no choice but to abandon her sister to keep the birthing center running smoothly.
Dead Ringers: Ending Explained
As Dead Ringers come to an end, we see Beverly leaving a dinner party with Rebecca, Susan, and Tom. She goes back to the birthing center and finds Elliot lying on the floor, completely drained of her energy. The Mantle sisters finally meet after a long time and share a warm hug. Beverly sees the babies that Elliot was growing in the lab.
After talking about her life, Beverly reveals that despite having everything that she had hoped for, she is still not satisfied. That happiness was something that she was incapable of attaining.
She describes the longing she had for Elliot and that she wanted to climb into her so they could finally be the same person. Beverly then lies down on the table, and Elliot knows what’s about to go down.
Elliot takes a scalpel and cuts her own abdomen, then stitches it up quickly. She then starts cutting her sister’s abdomen and removes the twin babies. Elliot then proceeds to hold the babies in her own hands and run outside for help, leaving her sister’s body open and bleeding.
Fast forward to the future, Elliot, who’s now taken up Beverly’s identity, wakes up to find Rebecca and Susan with her. Genevieve comes back too, and as they’re out in the park, a woman arrives, asking about her health. Through her, Elliot finds out that Beverly is already planning for this to happen, setting a perfect alibi for her.
Elliot cuts herself to pretend she is the one who had the babies. She understood what Beverly wanted and did her best to give her sister what she asked for, even if it was death. Beverly wants to die now that she realizes she can’t be happy with everything she got. Elliot assists her and takes up her identity as Beverly.
After Silas’s derogatory article about her, there’s no way Elliot could have had a good life. The scene where Tom rushes out of the city is most likely him trying to hide Beverly’s dead body.
She could now live as Beverly and continue her work. Along with Genevieve, she could start her own family with her sister’s twins. The ending scene where the woman from the emotional support center asks about her shows that Beverly always knew she would want to die one day.
She sets up a story that Elliot could follow once the plan is in motion. Just as she had intended, Elliot starts attending the session, but this time, the dead sister’s story is all too real. Alice Birch’s Dead Ringers is a deranged yet absorbing story of twins that are very codependent. They cannot fathom a life without each other.
Their obsession with each other’s life is what causes Beverly to give up her own. There’s no way she was going to kill Elliot for the world. Instead, Beverly chose to give up her own life and become one with her sister. This Dead Ringers is a great homage to the 1988 classic.
At present, Dead Ringers is available to stream on Prime Video.
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