Bucking Fastard

Drama

★ Shortlisted by Ariane, Frances, Mitch Allen, williamtremblay

Programme: Special Presentations
Year: 2026
Runtime: 109 min
Country: United States of America
Language: English

Two sisters, Jean and Joan Holbrooke, are so close to each other that they speak in unison, love the same man, and have the same dreams. They even make the same slip of tongue in unison. We cannot see the world as they see it, but we do see how the world reacts to them – through the courts and the press, through those that want to help and those who want to use them, through the eyes of beasts both tame and wild, and even through their own echoes in the core of the earth.

From the TIFF programme

Director Werner Herzog and real-life sisters Kate and Rooney Mara enliven the wild true story of twin sisters who speak as one, fall in love with the same person, and eventually spiral in a peculiar case that grabbed national headlines in 1980s Britain.

Filmmaker Werner Herzog is renowned for unearthing stories about highly unique characters. With Bucking Fastard, he tells the stranger-than-fiction but true tale of British twins Freda and Greta Chaplin, played by sisters Rooney Mara (Women Talking, TIFF ’22) and Kate Mara (Friendship, TIFF ’24).

Herzog’s filmic sisters, Jean and Joan Holbrooke, speak in unison, dress alike, have shared dreams, and, consequentially, fall in love with the same man (Orlando Bloom, The Cut, TIFF ’24). The sister’s obsession with their lover reaches a boiling point which ultimately must be resolved in court. Jean and Joan passionately defend themselves side by side as they have their whole lives, showing their unusual bond. A media frenzy, driven by the sisters’ strange and inextricably bound lives, inevitably ensues.

Hoping to escape the scrutiny of the trial and their heartache, the sisters seek various forms of refuge and encounter trials and tribulations along the way. Herzog conjures a fascinating and original story, bringing together the Mara sisters in one of their most captivating performances.

ANITA LEE

Content advisory: sexual content, coarse language, mature themes