Sundance 2025 Review: Twinless
A bereavement group dealing with the loss of a twin leads to a bromance that is not entirely what it seems.
Lashing out because of the death of his identical twin brother, Rocky decides to seek help from a bereavement group where he befriends Denis and the two become inseparable. Unannounced to one of them is that the relationship has been established under false pretenses and various circumstances occur that threaten to expose the lie.
An impressive cinematic moment is a split screen that eventually merges into a single shot thanks to the presence of a mirror; the technical execution and the visual impact on the storytelling does not get better than this. The other effective dramatic decision is the narrative twist that shifts what initially appears as a goofy buddy comedy into something insidious. The trouble is the acting that has more of an over-the-top quality that does play into the dark satire tone but causes an emotional gap between the audience and the characters.
Too bad that Laurie Graham has a small role as her presence and comic skill adds so much to the screen. Dylan O’Brien has somewhat of a thankless role of playing a dim bulb with a quick-trigger temper which makes him scary rather empathetic. James Sweeney has the trickly role of having to direct and act, and the result is a mix bag. Technically, the production is slick and the weirdness of his character makes one wonder what he is going to do next; however, in the end, he amounts to being cringy rather than creepy.
The 2025 Sundance Film Festival takes place January 23 to February 2, 2025, in person and online, and for more information visit sundance.org.
Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer who currently resides in Canada; he can be found at LinkedIn.