Rating: 
Summary: Five Stars out of Five - One of 1999's Best!
Review: "Twin Falls Idaho" is a dream-haunter of a film! Lovingly and meticulously directed by Michael Polish and written with quiet brilliance by Mark Polish (with help from twin brother Michael), this gentle, soft-spoken film is one of the three best films of 1999. The imagery in the film is sometimes warm and dreamlike, but more often gritty and stark, pointing out subtext to the audience without utilizing masks or shadows. It's a wonderful story about the nature of relationships: about love and marriage and "divorce"; and about the lives of those unfortunates society labels as "different", and the realization that they are not so different as society may have initially supposed. The acting is superb; the Polish brothers are completely believable as the conjoined twins Blake and Francis Falls, performing feats like deftly buttoning up each other's shirts or playing the guitar together (Blake strums while Francis manages the fret for chord changes) as if they had, indeed, done it all their lives. As the film rolled on, I found myself loving these two guys as unique and colorful individuals, and empathizing with their unique plight. And the often-utilized "Hooker with a Heart" character Penny is given new light and life by Mark Polish's careful crafting of the character and by Michelle Hicks edgy yet warm performance. If you're like me, "Twin Falls Idaho" will leave you awake nights, thinking long and long. I look forward to seeing what the Polish brothers will do next, either collaboratively or on their own.
Rating:
Summary: TWIN FALLS IDAHO
Review: "Twin Falls Idaho" opens with a hooker, Penny, being handed a two-dollar bill from a handicapped cab driver; he has a hook in place of his hand and Penny's shallow friend, Francine, is so appalled by his abnormality that she allows Penny to keep her change just so she doesn't have to take the money from his clamp. Penny, on the other hand, takes the bill, studies it for a moment in awe, then exits the cab (this foreshadows many things to come).She enters a hotel that, despite its look, is in some way comforting, and is the hideaway of the Falls Brothers; Two good-looking, often soft spoken conjoined twins, who have come to die together, so were told later in the film. Blake is the healthy one of the two, while Francis is ill and suffers from a weak heart. Upon seeing Blake and Francis, Penny is frightened and leaves. Forgetting her purse, she must come back for it and thus starts the relationship of the three. It's a love story, but not in the way that you'd think. It's more of a love story between the brothers than it is between the two of them and Penny. One thing I liked about Penny's character is that she is a little superficial, but knows it, which may in fact be the reason why she has a sort of fascination with the brothers. She finds them in a coffee shop on Halloween night (the one night they can be normal) and takes them to a party. Her friend Francine, from earlier in the cab, thinks she's weird and has a hard time believing she's taken a liking to Blake and Frances. Her photographer friend, of course, wants to take their picture for a magazine when he finds out their actual Siamese twins. She cares for them and tries to protect them. She is curious about them and even calls a close doctor friend by the name of Miles to examine them when Francis is feeling sick in the beginning of the film. Naturally, her kindness brings into play strong feelings from both Blake and Francis. While Francis may have been the one to call her to their hotel room for his brother on his birthday, it is also their birthday, and one might think he quietly hoped for her affection too. This is the kind of movie where your watching because your intrigued by the characters. Namely the Brothers, who are so calm and quiet, that there presence creates the tone of the movie, thus drawing Penny and the audience into their story. We imagine what it would be like to be that close with somebody, and yet knowing their closeness is by nature and not choice, we feel their mutual need to be near Penny, who is their by choice. And when it is clear that Francis may not live much longer, Penny becomes more than just a curator; she becomes what Blake will need and has needed his whole life -- someone to fill his void; his loneliness. It is a sad story, but also touching, and in its own way, is one of the best overlooked films over the year.
Rating:
Summary: Five Stars out of Five - One of 1999's Best!
Review: "Twin Falls Idaho" is a dream-haunter of a film! Lovingly and meticulously directed by Michael Polish and written with quiet brilliance by Mark Polish (with help from twin brother Michael), this gentle, soft-spoken film is one of the three best films of 1999. The imagery in the film is sometimes warm and dreamlike, but more often gritty and stark, pointing out subtext to the audience without utilizing masks or shadows. It's a wonderful story about the nature of relationships: about love and marriage and "divorce"; and about the lives of those unfortunates society labels as "different", and the realization that they are not so different as society may have initially supposed. The acting is superb; the Polish brothers are completely believable as the conjoined twins Blake and Francis Falls, performing feats like deftly buttoning up each other's shirts or playing the guitar together (Blake strums while Francis manages the fret for chord changes) as if they had, indeed, done it all their lives. As the film rolled on, I found myself loving these two guys as unique and colorful individuals, and empathizing with their unique plight. And the often-utilized "Hooker with a Heart" character Penny is given new light and life by Mark Polish's careful crafting of the character and by Michelle Hicks edgy yet warm performance. If you're like me, "Twin Falls Idaho" will leave you awake nights, thinking long and long. I look forward to seeing what the Polish brothers will do next, either collaboratively or on their own.
Rating:
Summary: Edward Hopper's green
Review: "Twin Falls Idaho" is bizarre, shadowy, enticingly eerie, and more moving than it would have been if its makers had merely intended to settle for a freak show. Instead, it's something more poetic, more tantalizingly original. In its dream-like way, it says more than any film this year about identity and isolation. So pared-down yet so vivid is its flavor that you look to paintings -Edward Hopper's, say - rather than to other films for ways to describe the way "Twin Falls Idaho" speaks its language of loneliness.
Rating:
Summary: Once Upon a Time
Review: A lovely piece of work. This film isn't for everyone,it's too special. There will be a day when you discover the meaning, you may be young and understand this story or old and can relate to its symbolism. Your time will come. Like all good art, the Polish brothers will be dead when this movie is most appreciated.
Rating:
Summary: Connects With the Inner Freak in Us All
Review: A prostitute is called to a room of a seedy residentialhotel. When she sees that the trick is plural in the form of a pair of conjoined Siamese twins she rather gracefully exists at her first opportunity. However, she comes back, she is drawn back, she has to come back. Thus the stage is set for a beautiful platonic menage-a-trois as side dish to the ongoing menage-a-deux the twins have played since before birth. One of the delights of the film is Halloween, the one day in the year when the twins can openly be comfortable with society as they "pass" as simply having a great costume. They go out to eat that night and encounter the prostitute quite by chance. The three go off to a Halloween party where they dance and socialize. The relationship between the three and between the twins continues to be explored. I won't give away the ending, but I will say that the premise focuses on endings and endings must be dealt with. The movie is sad but not depressing. It is uplifting even, but never tries to tap any cheap emotion that lesser movies covering the subject would. My wife wanted to see this movie. I didn't. I was afraid of it. I shouldn't have been. It is played straight. It is played with taste. It is not visually graphic. It IS emotionally graphic, as the situations cause us to think and it connects with the inner freak in all of us. The acting is superb as are all technical aspects of the movie. If you see yourself as a student of human behavior/emotion you will have a forever blank space in your education if you fail to see this movie.
Rating: 
Summary: A near-perfect examination of conjoined twins
Review: A sympathetic examination of conjoined twins, when Twin Falls Idaho is on the mark, it succeeds spectacularly. When it goes astray, which it does occasionally but never disastrously, more's the pity because this film could have been absolutely perfect. The scenes with just Penny and the twins flow at a fine, lugubrious pace; really, really good. It's the intrusions of external, real-world crassness that occasionally derail the film. The film needs these intrusions to establish an inside/outside dynamic, but it's same sinking feeling you got when you saw E.T., of all things-you just want everyone (except the good guys) to butt the hell out. The twins themselves (played by Mark and Michael Polish-they also wrote and directed) exude so many things; the scene where they're lighting the candles on their birthday cake says it all, really. Slightly flawed but riveting all the way, Twin Falls, Idaho falls just short of perfection.
Rating:
Summary: A sweet touching movie. Worth watching again and again
Review: But this DVD! it's a quiet sweet slow movie. It has a huge heart. The commentary is quiet and sweet just like the movie. I watched it again and again. I couldn't stop thinking about this movie. It really hit the spot with me. Another review gives a play by play of every scene. Cojoined twins, one falls in love. What do they do when one of them falls in love with someone? How do you have a relationship with a perma-third-wheel?
Rating:
Summary: Timeless
Review: From the first frame this movie haunts and develops into a beautiful exploration of dependency. The silence in this film is so poetic & strong you forget that people speak. The language in Twin Falls Idaho is the most unique I have ever seen between two people. It has taken my 4 years to discover Twin Falls Idaho and I am ashamed nobody told me about this movie, it has changed my life.
Rating:
Summary: Twin Falls Idaho
Review: From the restrained colors, music, pacing, acting - every element of this movie was perfectly thought out and perfectly connected. Including the Polish Brothers in their role as conjoined twins. They allow a peek inside what it is like to be a twin in the first place - but taking it to the most extreme example of two twin brothers that love and hate one another. And live with the knowlege that the weaker of the two has very little time left to live. And they delicately touch on all the little things that two attached people face daily - from their sleeping routines, to time in the bathroom, being a spectacle in public, their tender love for one another, and the one twin falling in love. I picked up the movie on a whim, thinking it would be comedic freakshow material. It turned out to be so much better than my expectations.
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