Directed by: James Sweeney
Distributed by: Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate
Written by Anna Harrison
75/100
Grief is a strange thing. It can have you crying one minute and laughing the next, all in between shouting matches over who gets to inherit Grandma’s underwear. For Roman (Dylan O’Brien), it’s doubly strange, considering he looks exactly like the deceased. Mourners approach him at his twin brother’s funeral only to burst into fresh tears as they gaze upon what appears to be a ghost, even though the two couldn’t have been more dissimilar: Roman is aimless, still living in his mother’s house, and “not the brightest tool in the shed,” as he puts it; Rocky, on the other hand, dressed immaculately, had a successful job and a nice apartment in Portland, and seemed generally to be on the up-and-up before getting hit by a car in the middle of a crosswalk.
Lost and unable to put into words what he is feeling, Roman decides to attend a support group for those who have lost a twin. It’s there that he meets Dennis (James Sweeney), who appears to be his polar opposite: skinny where Roman is bulky, gay and quick-witted where Roman is straight and stumbles over the simplest of phrases. Yet despite the gulf of differences between them, the two quickly form the kind of intense connection that only shared loneliness can bring—and, just as quickly, that connection spirals into obsession and codependency. When you are always used to existing as half of a whole, you want to fill that gap as quickly as possible; when you have been lonely your entire life, it becomes easy to cling to the first person who will listen and refuse to let go, even if you should.
Sweeney, who also writes and directs, wisely opts not to keep his cards too close to his chest for long, and about thirty minutes in, a wrench gets thrown into the audience’s perception of these characters. This revelation, which is too big of a spoiler to share, begins to build distance between Dennis and Roman, and that separation bleeds into the screen itself: as Roman and Dennis navigate a party they attend together, both dressed as characters from the Sims and complete with a green diamond above their head, Sweeney opts for a split screen. Rather than a gimmick, it seems a natural extension of Roman and Dennis’ relationship as they become severed from each other in every sense of the word. Eventually, Dennis stumbles upon Roman flirting with the cheery receptionist from his company, Marcie (Aisling Franciosi), and the screens smoothly resolve into one precisely at the moment that Dennis realizes he cannot get what he wants or recapture what was lost.
The twist could have easily steered “Twinless” into any number of things (soap opera, psychological thriller, bizarro romance), but Sweeney balances the tone on a knife’s edge. Grief is strange, yes, but it can be funny, too, and even as Roman and Dennis grapple with the morass of sadness that clings to both of their lives—for both what was and what could have, should have been—Sweeney keeps the audience laughing, even at death. The control that he displays here is admirable for any director and writer, let alone one only on his second film; not only does Sweeney deftly balance tone, but he and cinematographer Greg Cotten frame every shot to emphasize the alternating closeness and distance between the characters, and Jung Jae-il’s score is the perfect amount of anxiety-inducing, reflecting the hidden anger in Roman or the obvious, twitchy nervousness of Dennis. By the time the film reaches its pitch-perfect conclusion, you’ll be eagerly awaiting Sweeney’s third outing, whatever that may be.
“Twinless” Trailer
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