Give us your opinion of Tin & Tina [Netflix]

Director: Rubin Stein | Script: Rubin Stein | Cast: Milena Smit (Lola), Anastasia Russo (Tina), Carlos Gonzáles Morollón (Tin), Jaime Lorente (Adolfo), Teresa Rabal (Zuster Asunción), ea | Time to play: 119 minutes | Year: 2023

Horror movie characters are usually the most annoying people out there. Still, he unlocks the door while the killer is outside. I can’t resist touching that cursed artifact despite many warnings. Going unarmed at that sound even though no one is supposed to be in the house. There is already a long list of annoying clichés, but parents in tin and tub raise the bar to an unprecedented level. Are your kids severely screwed up socially? Oh man, don’t say anything about it and it will probably pass on its own.

Lola is already pregnant on her wedding day, but later has a miscarriage. To help her overcome her six-month depression, her husband Adolfo de ella proposes to adopt a child from the nearby convent. The nun pushes Tin and Tina, extremely religious twins with albinism. Lola learns that children take the Bible too literally and that begins to take on disturbing proportions.

So disturbing that Lola and Adolfo’s behavior is simply no longer credible. The twins go far, far away. And yet, there is no communication with the children, nor is it explained to them what is acceptable in society and what is not. Or rules are imposed on them, so they know what they are and what they are not allowed to do.

The parents also do not notice that these two children have unfortunately been completely indoctrinated by the nuns and therefore do not function at all. Even though this movie is set in the 1980s, the therapy was already around and it’s pretty obvious that Tin and Tina should get it. Tina puts a plastic bag over her brother’s head for fun. Tin ties a sleeping Lola to the bed. No matter what children do, they are never told why it is bad behavior.

The way the movie is presented through marketing and in the first few minutes doesn’t quite match what it turns out to be. Two posters with Lola and Adolfo as a kind of Mary and Jesus give the impression that this one will have a big wink. The twins are introduced playing brilliantly played organ music in the monastery, after which Tin and Tina turn out to be behind the keys. Very funny, and a little later Adolfo says that he doesn’t want to adopt them because they are weird children.

But then the humor stops and the rest is over. tin and tub Seriously. And that tires in many ways. First there is the character of Lola, in terms of makeup and behavior neither more nor less than a gray mouse. No matter what, this woman can’t cheer up and that makes her nervous in the long run.

There’s also the aforementioned lax parenting, plus the fact that these people seemingly never meet friends or family. Also, the movie is at least thirty minutes too long. The self-inflicted cinematography is also disturbing. For example, the climax is one uninterrupted shot, but that’s not necessary. Background music by Jocelyn Pook, who works for her. Eyes wide Shut repeating almost literally also gets on your nerves.

But at the top of the list is the ambiguity of what the creators of tin and tub actually trying to say. Towards the end, it suddenly comes down to men leaving too many tasks to women. But until then, all the attention has been on how susceptible children are to what they’re taught at a young age, how injecting them with ideas soon turns into indoctrination.

And then suddenly an ambiguous ending follows, full of incredibly silly innuendos. Besides, that’s cowardly, because something like straining children’s faith can certainly be tested. Tin and Tina see someone’s baby and demand that it be baptized, but when the mother indicates that she wants her son to make that decision herself when she is older, they are laughed at and sent away.

tin and tub is a film adaptation of the 2013 short film of the same name, which otherwise doesn’t seem to have much in common except for an eccentric, religious twin. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, and as often happens, the energy and power of the short form is lost in the new length. There are some stressful moments, but at two hours long that means there’s a lot of emptiness in between.

tin and tub can be seen in Netflix.