Nineties kids were raised on twin propaganda. \u201cFull House\u201d and \u201cIt Takes Two\u201d darlings Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen ruled young Hollywood. \u201cSister, Sister\u201d stars Tia and Tamera Mowry led enviable lives on television. Lindsay Lohan<\/a> doubled in cool factor when duplicated on-screen in \u201cThe Parent Trap.\u201d All of those actresses played twins separated at birth who encounter each other later in life, completely by accident. The lesson for viewers: If you didn\u2019t already have a look-alike, maybe you just hadn\u2019t found them yet.<\/p>\n Growing up in Alaska, \u201cI built this fantasy of meeting my long-lost twin,\u201d said 35-year-old indie filmmaker James Sweeney. \u201cI think it sort of encapsulated this idea of a perfect best friend \u2014 somebody who wants to do all the things you want to do. And, you can share clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n Eventually, it became clear the dream was never going to come true. So Sweeney did what so many artists have done before him: He channeled his fantasy into a movie. Sort of. In \u201cTwinless<\/a>,\u201d which opened Friday, the writer-director plays Dennis, an awkward Portlander who pretends to have lost a twin so he can bond at a twin bereavement group with Roman (Dylan O\u2019Brien), whose identical brother \u2014 Rocky, also played by O\u2019Brien \u2014 recently died. What Roman doesn\u2019t know is that Dennis not only knew Rocky before his sudden death, he played a pivotal role in the tragedy.<\/p>\n Flashbacks reveal that Dennis got hung up on Rocky after a one-night stand, adding a layer of creepiness to him approaching Roman at the group. There isn\u2019t any question of romance with this twin \u2014 as Roman is so straight that he asks whether there is such a thing as a \u201cgay gene\u201d \u2014 but Dennis is still relentless in his pursuit of friendship. His desperate, often delusional behavior turns \u201cTwinless\u201d into a darkly comedic meditation on the effects of profound loneliness.<\/p>\n \u201cI definitely would never have responded so excitedly to the concept of playing twins on its own,\u201d O\u2019Brien said over Zoom in mid-August, seated next to Sweeney. He was drawn to the opportunity to play these twins in particular: Rocky, an incorrigible flirt who can brighten any mood, and Roman, a dim but endearing brute grieving the brother he believed to be the \u201cbetter\u201d twin. \u201cI just thought the entire ride was something that, if executed right, could be really special,\u201d O\u2019Brien added.<\/p>\n O\u2019Brien says he felt the dual role as identical twins could be special. (Ava Pellor\/For The Washington Post) –<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always been interested in the psychology of twin identity,\u201d Sweeney says. (Ava Pellor\/For The Washington Post) –<\/p>\n Working on the film allowed O\u2019Brien and Sweeney, neither of whom has a twin, to imagine how losing one could impact a person\u2019s sense of self. \u201cI\u2019ve always been interested in the psychology of twin identity,\u201d said Sweeney, who pored over related studies in college and even dated a twin in adulthood. \u201cI thought it was a really interesting way to explore the concept of identity. Twin loss \u2026 struck me as a uniquely profound kind of grief, in part because it is a splitting of oneself.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTwinless\u201d premiered to positive reviews at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, with critics singling out Sweeney\u2019s \u201csophisticated sense of framing, pace and exquisitely uncomfortable dramatic tension,\u201d per Variety\u2019s Peter Debruge<\/a>. Ahead of the film\u2019s theatrical release, Ty Burr wrote in a three-star review<\/a> for The Washington Post that Sweeney has \u201cmastered a tone of intelligently amusing hopelessness.\u201d The original draft was written entirely from Dennis\u2019s point of view, Sweeney said, explaining that he switched to Dennis and Roman as dual protagonists after doing something similar with his first feature, the 2019 indie comedy \u201cStraight Up.\u201d<\/p>\n Introducing the budding friendship from Roman\u2019s perspective helped develop \u201can understanding of why these two people are drawn to each other,\u201d Sweeney said. He needed to ground the story in something real and relatable \u2014 Roman\u2019s immense grief \u2014 before turning it on its head.<\/p>\n Critics also praised O\u2019Brien\u2019s two-pronged performance, describing it as some of the most ambitious work undertaken by the former teen heartthrob (who made a name for himself on TV with \u201cTeen Wolf\u201d and in film with the \u201cMaze Runner\u201d franchise) in his recent forays into indie film. He physically transforms for each role in \u201cTwinless,\u201d carrying himself with a delightfully cheeky swagger as Rocky and broadcasting inner turmoil through Roman\u2019s hunched shoulders and lumbering gait.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, it was as much of a thing energetically as it was aesthetically,\u201d O\u2019Brien said. \u201cI wanted to genuinely be able to focus on the spirits and energies of each of these characters [and] take advantage of what I could change physically \u2014 facial hair, hair, all the things.\u201d<\/p>\n The 27-day shoot, which took place in early 2024, was divided into two parts: O\u2019Brien played Rocky before a brief break, and returned as Roman. He worked with Sweeney to carefully hone each of his portrayals. Rocky, who could have become a two-dimensional figure in lesser hands, possesses enough thorns to avoid caricature. (O\u2019Brien is straight in real life, while Sweeney is gay.) O\u2019Brien chose to use a different voice for Roman, speaking from the back of his throat, and Sweeney made sure that remained distinct. \u201cYou sound a little Dylan on that one,\u201d he would flag.<\/p>\n Critic’s have praised O\u2019Brien’s performance as well as Sweeney’s direction. (Ava Pellor\/For The Washington Post) –<\/p>\n Though Sweeney only plays one character in the movie, he toggled between two modes as a director. \u201cThe more I can have my visual choices be emblematic of what I\u2019m trying to convey narratively, the easier it is for me to make those choices,\u201d he said. He shot the first act on 35-millimeter film and switched to digital when the character perspective changes to \u201cexplore this theme of authenticity versus artifice.\u201d Similarly, the film starts out using dolly shots \u2014 or tracking shots accomplished by mounting the camera to a wheeled platform \u2014 and switches to camera zooms later.<\/p>\n \u201cTwinless\u201d evolved into something quite different than Sweeney\u2019s childhood fantasy of encountering a long-lost twin, but the emotional undercurrents are similar: Dennis still finds someone who makes him feel less alone \u2014 it just happens to be someone else\u2019s twin. The filmmaker recalled a scene in which the characters are playing two truths and a lie, and Dennis noted that the trick to playing the game well is to say something that is factually untrue but spiritually honest.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s kind of how I feel about this film as a representation of my life,\u201d Sweeney said. \u201cIt\u2019s emotionally truthful, but it\u2019s in no way how I act. For the record.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nineties kids were raised on twin propaganda. \u201cFull House\u201d and \u201cIt Takes Two\u201d darlings Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen ruled young Hollywood. \u201cSister, Sister\u201d stars Tia and Tamera Mowry led enviable lives on television. Lindsay Lohan doubled in cool factor when duplicated on-screen in \u201cThe Parent Trap.\u201d All of those actresses played twins separated at birth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2001856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[348559,361674,344069],"class_list":["post-2001855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-dylan-obrien","tag-james-sweeney","tag-the-washington-post"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/He-dreamed-of-being-a-twin-This-twisted-movie-fulfills.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2001855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2001856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2001855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2001855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2001855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span><\/div>\n
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