I put this one off for ages, and honestly, I’m not even sure why. I’d somehow talked myself into thinking it probably wouldn’t connect with my LGBTQ world, but wow, was I wrong. This film totally blindsided me. It’s a smart dark comedy that manages to be properly funny and seriously heavy at exactly the same time, with surprises all the way through.
Roman and Dennis are two young strangers who meet at a support group for people who have lost a twin. It’s such a specific, strange kind of grief that only someone who has lived through it could really start to understand. Roman is quiet and physically imposing, and his sudden flashes of rage feel even more disturbing because he is normally so still. Dennis is skinny, openly gay, and armed with sharp self deprecating humour that he uses as a shield. They could not be more different, yet tragedy brings them together, and their connection holds even after Dennis tells Roman he is gay, partly because Roman’s late brother was gay too. The two of them quietly start filling the space left by losing a sibling. Then, around 20 minutes in, the film rewinds and reveals something that changes absolutely everything. Dennis had met Rocky, Roman’s twin, slept with him once, and become completely obsessed. The day he turned up to surprise Rocky was the same day Rocky died in a car accident. Dennis, then, essentially made up a dead twin brother so he could get close to Roman through the support group. Even Dennis is not entirely sure what he wants from it all. Things change again when Dennis introduces Roman to one of his colleagues, and the pair fall hard for each other. She begins to find it odd that she has never heard a thing about Dennis’s supposed dead brother. Eventually, Dennis has no choice but to tell Roman the truth, and Roman understandably beats him up over it. The ending, set a little later, finds Roman reaching out to Dennis simply to see how he is doing, leaving the possibility of something real between them open.
Twinless is honestly difficult to fit neatly into a single box. Grief is right at its centre, and there is one scene where Roman asks Dennis to pretend to be his dead brother so he can speak to him that is absolutely heartbreaking. You really feel how the brothers had gradually drifted away from each other before the death, and how differently they both handled everything. Dennis, meanwhile, who also happens to have directed the film, is a fascinating combination of sympathetic and quietly unsettling. He feels guilty because part of him believes he is responsible for Rocky’s death. He is drawn to Roman partly out of that guilt, and partly because he almost fell for Rocky himself. The actor plays him so that you can neither fully support him nor completely dismiss him, and that is a very difficult balance to get right. On paper, the story could easily have been a complete mess: a gay man placing himself in the life of a grieving straight guy under false pretences. But the screenplay is tight, the execution is careful, and it simply works. The film also switches perspective between the two characters at different moments, which keeps you on your toes. Dylan O’Brien is genuinely brilliant here too, playing two entirely different people at opposite ends of everything—one straight and shut down, the other commanding and slightly unpredictable—and he is utterly convincing as both.
It’s funny, sad, original, and never loses sight of the very real human loneliness beneath it all. That final scene brings everything together in the most quietly beautiful way. (8/10)
