Sundance Review: Karen Gillan Faces Off With Her Clone in DUAL and It's Not as Exciting as It Sounds
Dual was actually one of the films at Sundance this year that I was most excited about watching. It sounded like it was going to tell a good and interesting story, and it stars Karen Gillan and Aaron Paul, both of whom are fan favorite actors. So, needless to say, expectations were a little high.
The film is set in a world where clones of people can be created to replace people who are dying. It makes the grieving process less severe as the clone takes their place in their families and situations. Gillan plays a young married woman named Sarah who is told that she is dying, so she decides to clone herself to replace her with her husband and mother. Things get intense and awkward when, after the clone is made, she is told that she’s not going to die after all.
Sarah’s clone does in quickly and begins to take over her life. There can’t be two of the same person running around in the world, so clones are usually decommissioned when this happens. But, not the clone of Sraah. Instead, she opts for a duel to the death! So, the real Sarah decides to start training to fight and win. Her trainer is played by Aaron Paul.
It actually sounds like it could be a great film! It’s certainly an interesting concept, but unfortunately, it wasn’t executed well. The movie was written and directed by Riley Stearns, and the acting in the film was so monotone and uninteresting. There was nothing about this characters that I liked, there was nothing different or unique about them, and everyone’s personality was just so damn dry. It took all of the fun out of the concept of the movie.
It’s a shame because it could have been so good! There’s really a great story here, but it just didn’t work. In the end, Dual was dull, and that’s a shame.
Here’s the description of the film from Sundance:
Recently diagnosed with a rare and incurable disease, Sarah is unsure how to process the news. To help ease her friends’ and family’s impending loss, she is encouraged to participate in a simple futuristic cloning procedure called “Replacement,” after which Sarah’s last days will be spent teaching the clone how to live on as Sarah once she’s gone. But while it takes only an hour for a clone to be made, things become significantly more challenging when that double is no longer wanted.
This darkly off-kilter comedy marks a welcome return to the Festival from writer-director Riley Stearns (The Cub, Sundance 2013). He straddles a curious line between deadpan satire and high-concept storytelling to take us on a sci-fi journey into the ways a catastrophic life change can force reconsideration of one’s entire existence. In the lead dual role, an oddly charming Karen Gillan proves the perfect match for Stearns’s strange, strange cinematic world.
