It’s hard to write — and direct, produce, and star in — something with a great premise. I’d imagine it’s even harder to junk that premise after 20 pages in favor of committing to a different one altogether. But James Sweeney’s “Twinless” is a film that hinges on the suppleness of the stories we tell about ourselves (among several other things), and this confident, clever, and cuttingly dark comedy almost never misses a chance to indulge in the courage of its convictions, especially when those convictions feel oh so wrong.
“Twinless” introduces itself as a light but mordant bromance about the friendship that develops between two boys who’ve both lost their identical brothers. On the one hand we have Roman (Dylan O’Brien, in a double performance that confirms the former teen heartthrob as a major talent), whose twin Rocky was just flattened to death by a car in the middle of a Portland crosswalk. Rocky was a flamboyantly gay charmer who carried himself with breezy self-assurance — if Roman were any straighter and less articulate he’d be a Barstool Sports podcast.
On the other hand there’s Dennis (Sweeney), a droll and calculating twink whose life was radically transformed by a childhood encounter with the Olsen twins classic “It Takes Two.” He and Roman might not be friends in any other circumstance, but it’s easy to appreciate why these grieving strangers are drawn to each other when they meet at a support group for twinless twins: They each fill the role of the sibling they lost. Cue: Grocery shopping dates, late night gab seshes, and even a road trip to a Kraken game in Seattle. It’s funny, it’s adorable, and it’s probably enough to have sustained a spiky 90-minute charmer that appealed to a broad cross-section of young viewers.
It’s also not the movie that Sweeney wanted to make, and “Twinless” is all the better for that. I don’t even want to reveal what happens after the late title card drop (always a good omen), so let’s just say that story makes a sharp and shrewdly executed swerve away from Apatow and towards Almodóvar or De Palma — less florid and operatic than such lofty comparisons might suggest, but just as eager to relish in the psychosexual foibles of its characters (a process that involves at least one wig, several ominous zooms, and a liberal use of some very effective and thematically justified split-screen).
The vast majority of those foibles belong to Dennis. Sweeney might struggle to sell the more anguished moments of melodrama that befall his character towards the end of the movie (which makes it that much easier to appreciate O’Brien’s skill as an actor), but there’s no denying he knows this material inside and out, and “Twinless” is only able to sustain its high-wire act of a story because Sweeney makes Dennis sympathetic and sociopathic in almost perfectly equal measure. Even after losing his twin brother, Dennis still feels like he’s two separate people split in half. More than that, he embodies the fantasy of wishing that you were two people split in half, if only so you could end your loneliness by finding the other part of yourself.
Even before the plot is wrinkled beyond the point of discomfort, there’s something a little squirmy about Dennis’ romantic infatuation with his new bestie, which is obvious to everyone but Roman. In fact, it’s squirmy because it’s obvious to everyone but Roman. “Twinless” will eventually confront the latent homophobia that audiences have come to expect from movies about queer-on-straight fixations (and it will do so with a tenderness that epitomizes Sweeney’s fresh approach to old tropes), but the friendship at its core is so delightfully skin-crawling because Dennis fetishizes Roman for his resemblance to Rocky at the same time as Roman appreciates Dennis for easing the pain of Rocky’s death. It’s a recipe for disaster.
“Twinless” mines a steady drumbeat of solid laughs from the mismatched energy of its co-leads, and the Pinter-like precision of Sweeney’s dialogue is especially well-suited to the scenes where Dennis and Roman are talking at each other on completely different wavelengths. Dennis is sly and sarcastic, and Sweeney delivers every line with a withering knowingness that would feel workshopped half to death if it weren’t so funny. By contrast, Roman is sincere and guileless. His anger flares when he feels like the butt of the joke, but most of the best ones go over his head (when Dennis asks if he’s from Moscow, Idaho, Roman blankly responds “You know another one?”).
Roman turns out to be a bit more complicated than his “aw shucks” demeanor might suggest at first (and O’Brien does a marvelous job of selling the credibility of those hidden layers), but there is a “Looney Tunes”-like element to watching such a committed schemer try to manipulate someone who’s just trying to get through each day in one piece. Sweeney maintains the psycho-thriller shenanigans on the strength of expressive 35mm cinematography and a satisfyingly recursive script that doubles back to make the most of every detail; the streets of Portland are saturated with loss, and the running gags that “Twinless” weaves through them are so good that it feels like a major flex to keep them in the margins. I’d watch an entire comedy about the girl in Dennis’ office whose entire deal is that she doesn’t talk about her personal life at work.
For a while there, it seems like the ever-smiling receptionist at Dennis’ company might be another one of those one-joke roles (especially if you, like me, fail to clock that she’s played by a note-perfect Aisling Franciosi, a million miles away from “The Nightingale”), but “Twinless” has much bigger plans for Marcie. Misdiagnosed by Dennis as a blithering NPC, Marcie turns out to be the emotional turnkey for the entire movie — even more so than Roman and Rocky’s mom (Lauren Graham), who pops in just long enough to suggest that losing a twin might sting with the same intensity as losing a child.
The romance that develops between Marcie and Roman should be enough to remind these characters about the upside of codependency, and to show them how valuable it is to have someone to lean on — whatever baggage might be carried between you. Dennis and Roman are both in need of a forgiveness that only they can provide to each other, and only they can make each other feel whole again, but it’s impossible to replace a brother, and maybe even harder to be reminded of that.
Harder than “Twinless” is ultimately willing to bear. For all of its cheeky flirtations with bad taste, this is a very nice movie at heart, and Sweeney lacks the killer instinct to follow this story to some of the darker places it seems like it’s begging to go. That might be for the best, as the film’s most severe moments strain the emotional believability of its underlying scenario, but it stings to watch such a clever and surprising tale of grief settle for such a predictable outcome. Sweeney renders these characters too honestly to resolve — or at least begin to treat — their pain so tidily. It’s like Winston Churchill famously never said: “If you’re going to hell, keep going.”
Grade: B+
“Twinless” premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Republic Pictures will release it later this year.
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