Critic’s Choice:  Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader a welcome surprise in ‘The Skeleton Twins’

Though you might not think it, “Saturday Night Live” alums Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader prove to be the perfect team to handle the dark themes of suicide and loneliness in the excellent new indie drama “The Skeleton Twins.” As adult siblings still damaged by their father’s suicide years ago, the twins spend much of the movie sorting out their feelings and their own broken relationship, falling in and out of love with life along the way. The filmmakers — director Craig Johnson co-wrote the screenplay with Mark Heyman — don’t shy away from the dark side of ending your life. Since Dad did, it sometimes seems the right solution in the wrong moment. But there is humor too, lightly playing off Hader’s and Wiig’s ease with comedy, familiar territory for actors who brought such wonderful nonsense to “SNL” for so many years. But it is the way they move through dramatic moments that comes as such a welcome surprise. Smart, sensitive and unexpectedly poignant, Hader and Wiig make the suicidal “Skeleton Twins” come alive.

betsy.sharkey@latimes.com