June and Jennifer Gibbons are twins from the only Black family in a small town in Wales in the 1970s and ’80s. Feeling isolated from the community, the pair turn inward and reject communication with everyone but each other, retreating into their own fantasy world of inspiration and adolescent desires. After a spree of vandalism, the girls are sentenced to Broadmoor, an infamous psychiatric hospital, where they face the choice to separate and survive or die together.

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Video Quality

The Silent Twins debuts on Blu-Ray with a 1080p presentation in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio that brings this aesthetically nimble movie to life. The transfer provides an incredible amount of detail and clarity, especially in unique aspects of the clothing and production design. The film utilizes instances of stop motion animation which reveals so many textural facets that jump off the screen. Objects hold up favorably in shadow and nighttime shots by retaining their depth and avoiding banding in nearly all instances. Black levels are strong and hold together nicely without exhibiting crush. The highlights of the movie are strong with no blooming or clipping. The movie itself has a muted color palette outside of when the twins are in their fantasy world inside their minds. No damage or digital noise was detected that would distract from this transfer. Universal delivers a perfectly solid disc for this one.

Audio Quality

The film comes to Blu-Ray with a capably realized DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track which succeeds in everything it sets out to do. The dialogue that is present and the narration comes through crisp and clear (or as clearly as the characters’ speech patterns will accommodate) with no hint of distortion. This plays well with the sound effects and soundtrack where nothing gets muddled. Surround channels get some lush activity, especially when we are in the dreamy realm of their minds. The soundscape fleshes out these environmental sounds to make the location feel more three dimensional. The intermittent implementation of low end adds some texture that enhances the atmosphere. There are no issues with the audio for this one. There are English SDH, Spanish and French subtitles provided.

Special Features

Deleted Scenes: Four unused scenes totaling nearly five minutes are provided here featuring two scenes of the twins when they are younger and two when they are older. They do not add a lot to the plot itself, but they are interesting moments to view.

Final Thoughts

The Silent Twins is a fairly engaging feature which does a good job of exploring its fascinating subjects, but the narrative becomes a bit sluggish and repetitive as we stand in the shadow of a longer-than-necessary runtime. The central performances of both the younger actresses and their older counterparts are both terrific, always allowing you into the world of these women who are trying to shut everyone out. The most revelatory moments are the ones in which director Agnieszka Smoczynska indulges in the creativity felt inside the twins through artistic composition and animation. Universal Pictures Home Entertainment has released a Blu-Ray featuring a great A/V presentation and a small selection of special features. The film is not without its flaws, but it has a good amount of creativity and an intriguing enough premise to make it worth a watch. Recommended

The Silent Twins can be purchased on Blu-Ray directly through MovieZyng or various other online retailers.

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.