Mini-series “Echoes” (produced in the USA – Australia, 2022) is a thriller with detective elements. Ten tense exciting episodes can be called a psychological “picking” in the difficult story of the interaction of two twin sisters. When people are like two drops of water, you involuntarily wonder who they are? Are they identical halves of one whole, or are they individuals, similar only externally, but different inside? How close and dependent are they on each other?
In everyday life, a close relationship between twins is always associated with something good. One is a support and support for another for life, one can only dream of such a friend. Here another aspect is considered – a strong psychological dependence and manic love of sisters – with all the ensuing consequences, both for themselves and for those around them. Americans Lenny and Gina from the film “Echoes of an Echo” demonstrate to the viewer a very extraordinary version of the relationship of “ideal twins”.
The plot of the film
The rebellious and emotional rebel Gina has long since left her hometown of Ekos. Having become the author of a scandalous bestseller and a successful businesswoman, she is satisfied with her life in California: a good husband, an established life, a chic mansion in the Hollywood hills. Gina is forced to return to her native places and plunge into the local society again by the news that her twin sister has suddenly disappeared.
Meek homebody Lenny with her husband Jack and a pretty daughter led a measured village life. On the farm, where they managed together with a widowed father and a third, younger sister with a disability, everyone is worried about the unexpected and strange disappearance of a young woman. Lenny was known as a non-conflicting person, sympathetic to others, respectable. Whom and how could she interfere?
Gina’s impulse to rush in search of a loved one is quite understandable. At first it seems that the meaning of the film lies in its detective component. Signs appear indicating the motives of the actions of a possible criminal (torn doll, strange indifferent people, tricky questions of the sheriff and others), they have to be unraveled. But by the middle of the timing, the drama of events and the psychological component of the thriller come to the fore.
The semantic load of the series
The difficulty of perceiving what is happening on the screen is that sometimes you find it difficult to determine which of the sisters is in front of you – the girls are so similar. Gina and Lenny often dress up, change their behavior, and act as substitutes for each other. This is a habit of twins since childhood: to share everything equally and identify their personalities. From flashbacks from the past, it becomes clear that they have always managed to manipulate others: change places in such a way that no one at home or at school knew about it.
Over time, the game, understandable to two and become their shared secret, from a harmless joke grew into a pathological and morally unscrupulous hobby. Once a year, Gina wears jeans and a plaid shirt, while Lenny transforms into a glamorous society lady. Young women change everything: houses, families, lives. So much so that even the closest people cannot notice the deception. Handsome horse breeder Jack is immersed in financial problems and is busy raising his daughter. Gina’s suspicious husband, a shrewd psychoanalyst, also feels nothing.
Much clarifies the reaction to what happened people who are involved in the search for the missing Lenny. The extraordinary behavior of the twins is projected in different ways on the lives of others: father, husbands, younger sister with a disability Clara, ex-boyfriend Gina Dylan. By the end of the film narrative, it becomes clear that the substitution of sisters practically destroyed both families. The purpose of the film is for the viewer to answer two questions: 1). How is it possible: to divide everything into two – and the house, and the spouse with the child, and body and soul, and good and evil? 2). Does a person have the moral right to try on someone else’s life?
Bad or very bad sister
Another thought of the filmmakers is that the world cannot be divided into white and black, and a person cannot be perfectly good or absolutely bad. In the first episodes, it seems that the cliches are placed correctly: sweet, meek, sympathetic Lenny and sharp, unbalanced, easily able to offend another Gene. By the middle of the film, you understand: everything looks different than at the beginning. One of the sisters turns out to be more selfish and envious than the other, and the second one is by no means a good boy and modest.
As the story progresses, the viewer observes how similar they can be, more precisely, how much one can suppress and control the other, which almost leads to a complete loss of personality. Everything falls into place as soon as you guess that the disappearance of her sister for Gina is not at all a surprise. She’s involved in what happened to Lenny. It turns out that the difficulties of the life of twins, the deception of relatives, the deception of oneself and unforeseen circumstances make one girl a victim, and the other her persecutor.
The impact of childhood psychological trauma on later life
Noticing Lenny’s slight insanity and Gina’s emotional instability, one can understand that the mystery of the sisters’ magical connection lies in childhood experiences. The twins began to turn scenes with substitution in adulthood after a terrible event, the light of which is shed by the confession of their father. That’s why Lenny became like this and dragged her sister’s life along with her.
Everyone suffers from alien common sense, painful relationships of the main characters. The main message of the authors of the film “Echo of the Echo” is that love can not only create, but also destroy. Echoes in the context of this series are not only echoes of memories of what the sisters had to endure. The actions of the “ideal twins” echo in the lives of loved ones and in their own destinies.
