'Dead Ringers' review: Rachel Weisz gives stunning performance in dual roles

WHAT IT'S ABOUT "Dead Ringers," a 1988 movie from the master of body horror David Cronenberg, gets remade for the streaming era into a six-part miniseries for Prime Video.

Rachel Weisz takes over the lead roles (played by Jeremy Irons in the original) as twin gynecologists Elliot and Beverly Mantle, who aspire to open a birthing center that can house groundbreaking and ethically suspect fertility research.

There's a lot more to the "Dead Ringers" experience than that, of course. It arrives  courtesy of showrunner Alice Birch (whose previous credits include the Hulu series "Normal People").

MY SAY Many actors have starred opposite themselves in the long history of film and television, but it is hard to recall anyone in such a scenario who gave as rich and complicated a performance as Weisz does here. 

That might sound like hyperbole, and honesty compels us to admit that there are caveats. The star benefits from technological advances in shooting these scenes. She has the freedom to fully develop the Mantles over the course of multiple episodes. There's no natural comparison between an intense drama and, say, Peter Sellers in the "Dr. Strangelove" war room.

Nevertheless, in Elliot and Beverly Mantle, Weisz develops two distinct people that also very much play off each other. Beverly is reserved and cautious, a doctor who wants to do the right thing for her patients and pursues their research for the right reasons. Elliot acts on base, primal instincts, tosses aside basic ethics and seems to be as interested in pursuing medical advancements to achieve fame and fortune as anything else.

Weisz establishes two distinct characters that have their own insecurities and deep fears, but her performance also captures the intense mutual need and interdependence that characterizes the twins' relationship.

She plays scenes against herself that are filled with anger, jealousy, fear and great love. They also have the tension of unexpressed emotions, the strain in recognizing that you might be growing apart from the closest person in the world to you and that you're losing something of yourself in the process.

She carries "Dead Ringers" to such an extent that it almost does not matter that a viewing of the first three episodes reveals the plotting to be opaque at best. Multiple developments raise questions that require serious unpacking.

There is some dramatic weight in the picture that develops of a venture capital-funded medical behemoth that looks like a tech industry hellscape more so than anywhere that places a real value on improving human lives. The birthing center, funded by some seriously unscrupulous characters, has a bar that offers "personalized juices," for heaven's sake.

This "Dead Ringers" carves out a path that's fundamentally different from the one laid out by Cronenberg, and not just because of the gender-swapped leads. But even if it takes some time to understand exactly where things are going and why, it can fall back on one of the most remarkable performances in a good long while.

BOTTOM LINE: Rachel Weisz. That is all.