Werner Herzog has made a career out of chronicling the rich inner lives of society’s misfits and outcasts, so it’s easy to see what appealed to him about the story of Yorkshire-born twin sisters Freda and Greta Chaplin, who achieved minor infamy in the 1980s when an infatuation with their lorry driver neighbour resulted in a restraining order. Even by twin standards Freda and Greta were remarkably close; they dressed identically and moved and spoke in unison. Herzog met the Chaplin twins and was fascinated by their bond, recalling in his memoir ‘Every Man for Himself and God Against All’, “They were as coordinated as a Rorschach test ready to be folded in two at any moment.”
In his first fiction film since 2019’s Family Romance, LLC, Herzog takes inspiration from Freda and Greta’s story, with sisters Kate and Rooney Mara starring as Jean and Joan Holbrooke, who – like Freda and Greta – land in hot water after becoming obsessed with their philandering neighbour Mr. Mulroney (Orlando Bloom). But this mishap, involving some lighthearted fence-removing and postbox arson, only serves as the jumping off point for Herzog’s curious dramedy, which – much like the Holbrooke twins themselves – marches to the beat of its own drum.
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“Jeanie and Joanie” speak almost entirely in rhythmic unison and are never seen apart; they do everything together, which sometimes results in unique challenges (such as being unable to both squeeze through a small gap while doing the vacuuming). The sometimes absurd practicalities of their relationship are a source of occasional comedy for the viewer, but Herzog refuses to make Jeanie and Joanie a laughing stock, even when their idiosyncrasies rub up against the sensibilities of the locals in their small Irish town. Rather, the locals are often quick to help the sisters despite their obvious oddness, including a patient shop assistant at a knitting shop who helps the sisters when they need new buttons for their overcoats. There’s a tenderness towards Jeanie and Joanie that so often feels missing from our current world, where it feels as though society is trending towards open hostility towards anyone who fits outside of what’s deemed normal in society.
This kindness extends to Richard Westmoreland (John Kavanagh) their neighbour who gives the sisters a place to stay, and their exasperated but earnest social worker Timothy (Domhnall Gleeson) who’s determined to help Jeanie and Joanie find ways to act autonomously at least some of the time. Yet there are still some who seek to destroy what they don’t understand, and the twins still ache for a place where they find true peace. Here Bucking Fastard takes a turn for the fantastical, allowing the line between reality and dreamworld blur as the sisters become fixated on digging their way to a land where they will find true love.
It’s a film as odd and unpredictable as we’ve come to expect from Herzog, a filmmaker who lives to zig when he’s expected to zag, and undoubtedly the fact Bucking Fastard works as well as it does is because of the inspired casting of Kate and Rooney Mara, who essentially perform two halves of a whole. Where many twin narratives concern the desire to be seen as individuals, this film explores the concept of two sisters who yearn to be a single entity and the complications such a desire creates in a world obsessed with individualism. Although somewhat uneven as its narrative wanders airily from one calamity to the next, there’s something undeniably sweet and special about this impassioned ode to the oddball that never speaks with anything but warmth for its protagonists, even in their more questionable moments.