[Rating: Swiss Fist]
In select theaters and available On Demand.
Imagine a world where if you died, your family would not get the chance to mourn you, but for good reason. You never left. Well, you did, but your spirit and life gets to live on as a clone; a clone who has rights, feelings, emotions and a new lease on life. Riley Stearns’s new film Dual deals with this concept and makes it into a story of survival: humans against artificial humans in a battle of endurance. Two will enter and only one can win.
Sarah (Karen Gillan) is a mundane person. Her deadpan self interacts coldly with the world around her, only being lukewarm to her boyfriend Peter (Beulah Koale) and totally ignoring her mother (Maija Paunio). She spends her lonely nights drinking away and watching porn to satisfy herself. Or so she thinks, as one morning she wakes up in a pool of blood she spat out the night before. Tests from a doctor show she is terminally ill. Soon to die, the doctor gives her the option to clone herself so her family does not have to mourn, and she takes advantage of the offer. Sarah’s Double (Karen Gillan) is learning to be like her. However, it is noted that ten months later, Sarah’s Double has totally taken over all of her life, just waiting for the moment that Sarah dies. Sarah, though, discovers she is not dying. This leads to the conundrum that two Sarah’s cannot exist and in this world, clones have rights. Their rights involve dueling to the death on who will ultimately be the only Sarah. Sarah hires defense trainer Trent (Aaron Paul) to help her train for the ultimate day of the duel that will seal either Sarah’s fate.
On paper and describing it, the movie sounds pretty awesome. Unfortunately, it’s…fine. I wish there was more written into the story about why clones have rights and how clones came to be made in the first place.
At a fast run time, it almost feels as if the viewer is supposed to come in with the knowledge you know of this parallel universe. Gillan’s character is mundane and deadpan, but it gets so tiresome early on that I didn’t care which Sarah was going to survive in the end of it all. It spends a lot of time getting at why Sarah has to train to duel but never her inner feelings and emotions. Does she care at all? If she does survive, what will her life now be like?
There’s too many questions and not enough fleshed out answers. The double meaning of the title is clever, but the ultimate end result makes me want to duel with my inner self on why one day, I could like this a lot more.
Christian Ramos is a classic film fan, having had the dream to host Turner Classic Movies for years now. He also has a large amount of Oscar trivia in his head, remembers dressing as Groucho Marx one Halloween, and cherishes the moment Julianne Moore liked his tweet.
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