What sets itself up as something of a meet-cute between two grieving men who form an unlikely friendship in the midst of their trauma, James Sweeney‘s Twinless ultimately reveals itself as something else – a particularly pitch-black dramedy that asks its audience to stay with its morally bankrupt lead as it shifts from an original sweetness to something far more sour.
Reveling in each of its shocking reveals, Twinless starts off on a somber note as we gather at the funeral of Rocky, where his grieving twin brother, Roman (Dylan O’Brien), receives multiple condolences from guests who openly wail in his face due to his resemblance to the dearly departed. Sweeney’s script pieces together for us that the twins were close growing up, but grew distant in their adult years, with Roman, “not the brightest tool in the shed” (as he confusingly states) and harboring evident anger issues, living an understated existence, whilst Rocky (O’Brien in a slick dual role), openly gay and far more confident in himself, travelling across the world and creating his own chosen family in the wake of their disconnection.
Roman is devastated at the loss, and, in the aftermath of the car accident that took Rocky’s life, he finds an unlikely support group to assist in his pain, one where individuals who have also lost their twin sibling gather to detail their grief. The leader of the group, Charlotte (Tasha Smith), has a wicked sense of humour (she states that she’s now the older twin because the other is dead), and it’s the film’s unapologetic nature in showcasing such comedy that lets us know that Sweeney’s script won’t be playing by any expected rules.
And it’s within its defiant rule-breaking that Sweeney lets his own character, Dennis, thrive. Gay, nerdy, funny, Dennis, also grieving the loss of a twin, finds himself immediately drawn to the quiet machismo of Roman, and perhaps due to feeling like he failed in truly appreciating his own gay twin, Roman connects with Dennis, leading the film on a sweet, bromance-type trajectory that, for the first 40-or-so minutes of its running time, is wholeheartedly embraced.
Then the rug is well and truly swept out from under us. Sweeney saves himself the film’s most uncompromising character, throwing Twinless into disarray as we, the invested viewers, feel uncomfortable and shaken, but with ultimately no choice but to stay with his Dennis, putting certain pieces of his person together. The film was already operating with a certain sense of dark humour, but Sweeney takes it further than many will expect. Whether or not you’re one step ahead of the film as to what it decides to reveal is of little use, as, even if you piece together the stepping it decides to take, none of Twinless‘s shock value is diminished.
Dennis makes some truly heinous life decisions, and Sweeney never explicitly asks you to forgive his actions, but he quite masterfully creates a character that we can at least understand. The notion of loneliness that comes with losing a sibling is fused with the isolation one can feel in being gay, and Dennis, through the stories he hears from Roman about the confident and, by all accounts, popular Rocky, is clearly stirred by the fact that he’ll never be what Rocky was, as well as that his attraction to Roman can never be reciprocated; though, without giving anything away, he does try a move late in the game that drew quite the visceral reaction from the attending crowd.
At one point in Twinless, Dennis states “The trick is to say something that is emotionally true but factually false,” and such a summation feels incredibly apt for a film that ultimately serves as the physical manifestation of the confusing, inexplicable nature we adhere to against our better judgement in the midst of our pain. Flawless in its depiction of the flawed.
FIVE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Twinless is screening as part of this year’s Sydney Film Festival, running between June 4th and 15th, 2025. For more information head to the official SFF page.
