Rooney and Kate Mara Are Brilliant in Werner Herzog's Fractured Fairytale Bucking Fastard

Almost nothing in Werner Herzog’s fractured fairytale Bucking Fastards, playing in competition here at the Venice Film Festival, makes literal sense. But it all makes a kind of sideways sense, especially if, before watching, you can will yourself into a Herzogian brainspace, a place where possibly nonexistent elephants roam the Earth, where ancient cave drawings bear witness to the enduring creativity and wonder of humankind, where mad dreamers insist it’s possible to haul a multi-ton ship over a mountain. In that context, two inseparable sisters who speak only in unison, who are crazily lovesick over the man who has spurned them, and who believe they can dig a literal tunnel into a land of freedom, acceptance, and love: in a world where our deepest desires are so seldom met, how nuts does that really sound? Real-life sisters Rooney Mara and Kate Mara play Joan and Jean Holbrooke, sisters living in Ireland—they are not, they adamantly insist, twins—who share every emotion, every thought, every waking moment as if they were a single entity. They dress exactly alike, in droopy trenchcoats and modest granny-style skirts; they both wear their long, silky hair parted neatly in the middl...