Entertainment
Rooney and Kate Mara Officially Can’t Save Werner Herzog’s Bizarre Comeback Film
After seven years focused on making documentaries, Werner Herzog has finally returned to the world of narrative film with Bucking Fastard. Herzog, who serves as both writer and director, spotlights Kate Mara and Rooney Mara in this film, which is inspired by the real-life story of sisters Freda and Greta Chaplin. Kate plays Jean Holbrooke, while Rooney plays her sister, Joan—two characters who are so in sync with each other that they finish each other’s sentences, speak in unison, fall in love with the same man, and struggle to find their own individual identity outside their duo. Caught in a scandal after falling for the wrong guy, Jean and Joan somehow find themselves digging a tunnel inside a cave in Ireland, in a bizarre and surreal tale that ultimately struggles to find its proper footing.
‘Bucking Fastard’s First Half Is a Weird but Hilarious Good Time
The charm of Bucking Fastard comes in the form of the Holbrooke sisters and their unconventional bond. While they’re not actual twins, they act in a way that goes beyond the limits of identical twindom, seemingly sharing the same thoughts, dressing in the same clothes, and speaking the same words. But their connection moves far beyond that into the realm of the incestuous and inappropriate when it’s revealed they also share a lover—their neighbor, Gareth Mulroney (Orlando Bloom).
Herzog’s film begins like a legal drama, with Joan and Jean in court facing off with Gareth, who is asking for a restraining order against them. What might have seemed like a freaky interlude for Gareth feels like true love for the sisters. And when Gareth decides that it’s time to get married (to someone else), the sisters not only become wildly possessive, but seek their revenge on the man they once professed to be their true love. The legal case ends up becoming a media sensation—as it did for the real-life Chaplin twins—and launches Jean and Joan, unwillingly, into the public eye.
Much of the appeal of the first half of the movie comes from watching the two Holbrooke sisters try to navigate a modern world. From pervy creeps who are obsessed with them to onlookers who see them as an odd novelty rather than human beings, Joan and Jean might seem a little weird, but it’s impossible not to feel a bit protective of them. Their innate naïveté is endearing, even when it’s overdone.
It’s hard to understand how the sisters have remained so sheltered their entire lives, but the world Herzog creates is admittedly surreal, and it’s that combination of surreality and humor that makes the film unique. The fact that Herzog dedicates the film to David Lynch might explain some of that, but Lynchian or not, it doesn’t excuse the inconsistency that begins to poke out of the film’s seams upon closer investigation.
‘Bucking Fastard’ Fails To Make an Impact Halfway Through the Movie
Bucking Fastard‘s problem is not one particularly unique to this movie: there are simply too many ideas. The first half feels like a small-town dramedy. Caricature-like background characters pass through the sisters’ lives, nearly as odd as they are. Save their lawyer and their Aunt Louise (Marion O’Dwyer), every character in the film is male, and they either fetishize or infantilize the sisters.
On one hand, Herzog might have been better served trying not to explain the quirky world that the Holbrooke sisters live in; lingering in the weirdness could have given the film a folktale-like quality. The problem is that Herzog does poke at the elephant in the room, trying to pop the bubble of the Holbrookes’ connection with a dose of reality. After their trial, the sisters meet Timothy (Domhnall Gleeson), a social worker who has been assigned to help them find their independence from each other. It’s in these moments that it becomes clear that Joan and Jean’s synchronicity isn’t just a fantastical trait, but more likely the result of loneliness and a fear of abandonment.
As Timothy encourages them to do things on their own, we finally see some friction between the sisters. Ironically, it’s this move to “explain” their codependency that ruins the narrative. During the second half of the film, Herzog throws a bunch of concepts at the wall, hoping that one of them might stick. Though the film is beautiful, with Herzog using his experience as a nature documentarian to capture the majesty of rural Ireland, once the movie reaches this point, it also begins to lack any real substance. Rather than leaning fully in, Bucking Fastard vacillates between absurdity and a more sobering reality. This then leads to glaring inconsistencies with tone and pacing that bring the momentum to a screeching halt.
Despite All of That, ‘Bucking Fastard’ Allows Kate and Rooney Mara To Shine
What ultimately makes Bucking Fastard work is the dynamic between Kate and Rooney Mara. It’s a testament to their performances that it’s actually not difficult to see the distinct traits unique to each character, even when they act and look like carbon copies of each other. Rooney delivers a just-slightly-better performance as the more emotive of the two sisters, but it’s her natural chemistry with Kate that creates the magic. At the same time, their ability to speak in unison, adapting the same staccato tone, is genuinely impressive, and the Maras deserve all the flowers for the complicated performance.
Another standout comes in the form of Bloom, who plays the cavalier, flirtatious, and ultimately disloyal neighbor who the sisters first fall in love with. It’s odd that Bloom hasn’t played many characters like this, because he excels at embracing a smarmy attitude, one that makes him utterly punchable but also endlessly entertaining. Compared to some of the other completely one-dimensional characters, Bloom is the source of much of the film’s humor, and it’s a pity we didn’t get more of him.
Although Herzog’s script could have used a lot more refining, Bucking Fastard is visually sumptuous and warm. The costuming, visual landscape, and camera angles all evoke a sense of the fantastical without bringing in any true elements of fantasy. Toward the end of the film, Herzog dips back into a bit of magical realism, but due to the pivoting back and forth in tone, it doesn’t land nearly as hard as it should. At the end of it all, the Maras remain the best part of the Bucking Fastard, but even they are occasionally overshadowed by a concept that needs a bit more sharpening and refining.
- Release Date
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September 5, 2026
- Runtime
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109 minutes
- Director
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Werner Herzog
- Writers
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Werner Herzog
- Producers
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Agnes Chu, Ariel Leon Isacovitch, Clara Wu Tsai, Werner Herzog
Cast
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Rooney Mara
Joan Holbrooke
- Kate and Rooney Mara excel at playing the odd Holbrooke sisters and acting in sync.
- Orlando Bloom is perfect as a smarmy antagonist, a role we rarely see him in.
- The first half of the film and the second half feel too tonally different to mesh together.
- In trying to explain the sisters’ bond, the movie loses some of its charm and mystique.
- Herzog loses some of the absurdity that would have gone a long way to making this a winning film.
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