Memos From the Film Society: “Twinless” Reviewed

The dual role is one of the ultimate challenges for any actor — one person must construct two separate characters that need to be similar enough for thematic purposes but different enough to be easily distinguishable. The identical twin role has a particular legacy, ranging from Lee Marvin’s classic Oscar-winning performances in “Cat Ballou” to the Lindsay Lohans in “The Parent Trap,” all the way to Michael B. Jordan’s recent performance as gangsters Smoke and Stack in “Sinners.”

A new actor has entered this rarified club: Dylan O’Brien in the 2025 movie “Twinless” (dir. James Sweeney). This film is a crowd-pleasing cult classic in the making. O’Brien first shines as Roman, a lonely man grieving the loss of his twin brother. Then, in flashbacks, he transforms into his deceased twin, Rocky, a gay man hurting for entirely different reasons. Their faces and bodies may be the same, but O’Brien takes the script and makes it sing, expressing humor and heartbreak constantly in both visages. With his skill, he keeps the movie, in all its twists and turns, from flying off the rails. 

And what twists and turns they are! At a base level, “Twinless” is a simple story about two men, Roman and Dennis (also Sweeney) who meet at a counseling session for twins who’ve lost their other half. But this setup for a potentially typical bromance is blown up within the first twenty minutes — before the title card even appears — in favor of a more complicated movie about secrets, obsession, and the loneliness that ties the two men together. They both miss someone desperately and feel as if a part of themselves is missing, and will do whatever it takes to get something like it back again. The film goes to some strange and dark places, but never loses sight of the sweetness at the core of their relationship.

The credit for this careful balance rests primarily on the shoulders of Sweeney, who directs, writes, co-produces, and co-stars alongside O’Brien. In what is only his second film, after 2019’s low-budget “Straight Up,” Sweeney displays a strikingly sure hand, capturing absurd comedy, heartbreaking revelations, and tense dramatic monologues with the same spryness of a more seasoned director. His script works the same wonders, letting the tonal shifts and the excellent ensemble cast work their magic smoothly. 

Sweeney doesn’t just let his camera settle on the surface — he also turns the audience’s gaze inwards, toward the unknowable center of the characters. Many of his breaks from the steadiness of formal dramedy involve compositions focusing on mirrors and the many reflections cast by Roman and Dennis. In one particularly memorable scene, the two men wander through a party in a split screen, each half following one character and his conversations. The scene only fixes itself when Dennis is caught in Roman’s shot by a reflection in the mirror. Another shot of Dennis over a table late in the film is positioned rather low, with almost the entirety of the frame taken up by his faint and upside-down reflection in the surface. 

This self-reflexivity and duality are not contained to the camerawork, but extend to the characters themselves. Both Roman and Dennis deal with missing other halves, with Roman’s loneliness touched by themes of rootlessness and grief, while Dennis reckons with his social anxiety and the isolation of queerness. The mirror highlights these missing pieces and connects them across their differences. Maybe the two men can find themselves in each other, or maybe they will drift off into their own self-destruction. Either way, it is a compelling journey for the audience to watch them try.

Perhaps the one major flaw in the film comes in the conclusion of this journey. The third act and its resolution feel a bit too simplistic for the complexities explored earlier in the film. The two main characters’ self-destructive and occasionally cruel actions and duplicity, particularly those of Dennis, are also glossed over and easily forgiven in favor of all too pat forgiveness and a simple answer to their search for more. While the circular nature of the ending is clever, it leans too much on that cleverness and not enough on a solid resolution or a stronger ambiguity.

Despite this, audiences are likely to leave the theater remembering the many scenes of dry, uncomfortable humor and empathetic compassion more than the ending itself. Sweeney has firmly established himself as a rising director bound for more incredible and daring films, formally and tonally. At the same time, O’Brien has once again proven himself capable of carrying a film. After all, he did carry “Twinless” twice over. 

Even when things are missing from the characters’ lives in the film, nothing is really missing from “Twinless.” The movie contains the entirety of the process from internal grief to the outward ripples it creates in the world and the people around us. We are all missing some twin, some piece of ourselves, but “Twinless” reminds us of the little places where we can find them.