Twin Sisters

There's nothing like a Third Reich tearjerker to put you in a fun-loving mood. Okay, that's a facetious remark, but Twin Sisters earns a sarcastic reaction by treating every conceivable separated-at-birth cliché like Greek tragedy played as a Hallmark Hall of Fame flick. (And this was the Netherlands' Oscar-nominee for Best Foreign Film of 2004? The windmills of Dutch cinema must be grinding slowly these days.) Based on a 1993 Dutch bestseller (De Tweeling) devoured by 3.5 million readers in the Netherlands and Germany, this melodrama about twin sisters separated at age six, then reunited once in Nazi-era Germany, and again as seniors, is a consummate chick-flick with an historical pedigree. By the time Hitler gains power, Anna (Nadja Uhl) has survived brutal poverty and an abusive uncle in rural Germany, and now works as a maid for a baroness, while falling in love (too naively, it seems) with an eager SS recruit. By comparison Lotte (Thekla Reuten) was "lucky," raised by wealthy Dutch Jewish relatives determined to keep her from the "illiterate barbarians" who brought up Anna, going so far as to cruelly withhold a stack of letters Lotte wrote to her distant, beloved sister. They're eventually reunited, though old wounds don't heal that easily, and the sisters have some latter-day issues to confront before they can be reconciled. Though very well-acted and earnest to a fault, it's also too soapy for its own good, qualifying as an above average TV movie but nothing more. Optional. (J. Shannon)