Twin Sisters review

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

Based on a bestselling Dutch novel by Tessa de Loo, this Euro-pap tale of two sisters plays like a Danielle Steele sob story. Separated at birth, twins Anna (Nadja Uhl) and Lotte (Thekla Reuten) lose touch. Years pass, Hitler comes to power and when they finally meet again, Anna's a card-carrying Nazi with a hubby in the SS and Lotte's hitched to a Jew earmarked for Buchenwald. Hello irony, goodbye subtlety.

Chocolate-box visuals and a pair of solid performances give this melodrama a pretty sheen, which goes some way to explaining its foreign-flick Oscar nom in 2004. That and an Academy-friendly, reality-averse dip into sickly sentiment that will have you reaching for the hurl pail in the final act.

Showing a dismaying willingness to whitewash Holocaust history and fudging issues of blame and responsibility for Nazi atrocities, Twin Sisters is dismayingly facile.

The Total Film team are made up of the finest minds in all of film journalism. They are: Editor Jane Crowther, Deputy Editor Matt Maytum, Reviews Ed Matthew Leyland, News Editor Jordan Farley, and Online Editor Emily Murray. Expect exclusive news, reviews, features, and more from the team behind the smarter movie magazine.