Hell yeah! Movies can get remembered for many reasons, but one of the best ones is when you pinpoint this as the movie where someone took a leap. Where they were one type of actor before, but now they are something else forever and ever. Twinless should hopefully be remembered as the double leap movie for both leads; how wonderfully ironic.
Both Roman (Dylan O’Brien) and Dennis (James Sweeney) are down in the dumps. Both have lost their twins, Rocky and Derek, and struggling with those feelings. Fate brings them together in a lost twins support group (thankfully, a real thing), and the two click almost instantly. Eventually, Roman is ready to move forward with his life, but Dennis is hesitant, threatening the newly forged relationship that Dennis badly wants to maintain.
Jumper 1 is Dylan O’Brien. I’ve always liked the guy, but his timing never quite worked out in his early years: a YA adaptation after the well ran dry, the ending days of MTV’s cable series, and a too late Mark Wahlberg action movie. But Taylor Swift cures all ills, and the All to Well sensation teamed him up with on the rise Zoey Deutch and a part of the Not Ready for Prime Time Players. That 10 year journey built O’Brien to be ready for Twinless, a dual role which he nails. He’s equally good playing a gay extrovert (Rocky) and an awkward hair triggered introvert (Roman), necessary for the movie to work. It’s Roman where O’Brien shines brightest. You can feel the push and pull going on inside the dumb lug as he tries to cope with feelings he’s not adequately prepared to explain to others. Anger is sitting just under the surface ready to explode any time he loses control, which he goes to great lengths to try to do. The relationship with Dennis and eventually Marcie (Aisling Franciosi), a girl at Dennis’s work shows the multitudes within the seemingly simple Roman, that make the audience fall in love with the guy like Dennis kind of does.
Jumper 2 is James Sweeney, jumping into the triple threat camp. His acting wonderfully matches Dylan O’Brien’s for both twins, shapeshifting depending on if he’s Derek with Rocky, or Dennis with Roman. But the big reason Twinless works is more from his work behind the camera. His script is wonderfully constructed, grounded emotionally while never content to tell just one story. Sometimes we’re in a buddy comedy, sometimes a weepy melodrama, a romance, an even a thriller. The tonal juggling of the script is beautifully balanced…and backed up by Sweeney’s direction. The movie has this dreamlike dark malaise washing over it; often times it’s melancholy, but there’s still room for bright spots here and there. Sweeney also employs Twin Cam: a split screen shot of Roman and Dennis going through the same party, event, etc, to smartly showcase the different experiences of both our characters in real time while not in the same room. It’s not overused, and very effective at really establishing some of the key differences between the twinless leads.
I hope Twinless becomes the jumping off point for James Sweeney and Dylan O’Brien. Both proved their chops here, and deserve shots to be a part of some of the best cinema has to offer in the future. And no studios, that doesn’t mean we need to make Twinful, the sequel to this great film. This is not the movie to franchise.