Please don't spend money on this.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

This film is kind of soap opera. There's good acting and a good story, but there's something important missing. The film tells about twin sisters that love each other deeply, separated by chance and war, brought up in different countries that suddenly find themselves on opposing sides of a battling world. Their emotional distance grows on and on. At the end of the war (second world war), there's so much bitterness that their reconciliation seems difficult. This story as you see, can be rendered in a very interesting way, but as I said before, there's something important missing. The relationship between the sisters, as portrayed in the film, lacks warmth. For instance, their first meeting in the train station, after so many years of separation, could be really moving. It isn't, it's just average. For real emotion in acting see Penelope Cruz in "Non ti Muovere". And the relationship between Lotte and the Jewish pianist looks like a TV commercial selling whisky or cars. It's not convincing at all as a deep love relationship. Don't get me wrong. The acting is generally good but what about the chemistry? Still I think that this is a good film, but it could have been so much better! Nadja Uhl (playing young Anna) gives the better performance of the film. She's more intense and if she finds a talented director(for instance, Almodovar) she'll be able to shine.

Recently a Dutch documentary was shown on Israeli television destroying the image of the Dutch as fierce resistance people, saviors of their Jews and Dutch non-cooperation with German authorities during WW2. For most Jewish people this came as quiet a shock, because the image of the Dutch caring for its Jewish people was well established in the minds of Jews living in Israel and the U.S. Of course many were saved, but a lot were betrayed also. (Unlike say the Danish Jews). The novel and movie De Tweeling / Twin Sisters carefully builds the image the Dutch want to have of WW2 and themselves, so it defines in a strange way its national identity.Two twin sisters are separated very young as their father dies. One ends up in an upper class family in Holland, the other in a farming family in Germany. This setup is used to tell parallel story lines of events before, during and after the war: We have the Austrian soldier joining the SS, a Jew going off to the concentration camps, a Jewish family finding shelter for the war and razzias, Polish forced laborers in Germany, the Nazis (over-clichéd but that fits the tone here). At some points the sisters meet again, only to be separated by other events. The story is a framework around the last meeting the two sisters have, telling the story of their lives.It moves unnecessarily slow and has a leisurely pace. The direction is straightforward and on the level of a TV-movie without much imagination. However there are moments of good storytelling, as a new storyline is sometimes introduced without explaining too much (e.g. Anna throwing away some baby cloths; Lotte is married but we have to derive that ourselves).The acting is sometimes disappointing: Especially Thekla Reuten as Lotte is unable to carry the movie having one of the lead roles; this applies also to her male counterpart, Jeroen Spitzenberger as David. Overall the German actors are somewhat better (experienced) than the Dutch ones.When seen as a simple WW2-story De Tweeling is an average movie suitable for a large audience of all ages. But the book is more interesting as this is not the best adaptation from a novel.

Little did I like Dutch cinema before I first saw this movie. The Colours are hardly professional and the acting is not always too good. But Ben Sombogaard has delivered a Dutch film of which we can be proud.The film about two separated twin-sisters is situated mostly in the Second World War. Anna and Lotte both live in different countries. Anna lives in Germany were she is poor and attracted by the promises of the National-Socialism. Lotte lives in a rich family in the Netherlands. Living separate lives, the become more and more detached from each other. Finding each other in a Spa in Luxembourg brings back more and more memories. But can they forgive each other...Ben Sombogaard did a great job in shooting the film of this popular Dutch book. Particulairly should be mentioned the fact that he choose never to make a film about the war. The confusions and drama between the two sisters are the most important storyline. The war is only (a very important!!) background. A must see for everybody, especially Dutch people!

This is a must see movie, which changes from the vast quantity of Hollywood WW II movies that already exist. De Tweeling is based on a book by Tessa Loo, and produced by a Dutch/Luxembourgish crew. The movie plays in the Netherlands and Luxembourg, although they will want to make you believe it is Belgium. This is the only reason why I haven't rated it with a ten out of ten. The movie perfectly reflects the great and small drama's that certainly happened during the war, and grasps the public's attention from beginning till the end. De Tweeling has been nominated for the Oscar's in 2004 but alas did not get this great reward.