That's Not Me

This played at the Sydney Film Festival to a packed house, and was an absolute delight.

Alice Foulcher, plays an identical twin, Polly, whose sister Amy is winning all the acting roles. Things get worse and worse for Polly, as she gets mistaken for Amy, and passed over for auditions due to being "the other one". Her parents seem oblivious to what she is going through, and it only gets worse when her sister is all over the internet due to dating Jared Leto. Whereas Polly, when she googles herself, is nowhere.

All the cast are strong. Belinda Misevski as flatmate Ariel is great. So is Rowan Davie as Oliver, the modern-day hookup from hell.

The ending is bittersweet albeit a bit quick, and leaves you wanting more. There would be room for a sequel: perhaps Polly could have another (even more disastrous) stab at Hollywood.

It is mystifying how they made it on a budget of $60k, it easily looks like a $1m+ production. The only time it looked slightly tighter on budget is with the LA scenes, but they're also some of the funniest and most poignant. Isabel Lucas is brilliant here as another Australian actress who has kind of made it in Hollywood, but is still struggling for roles. According to the director, Lucas's scenes (supposedly set in LA) were actually filmed in Australia due to scheduling, with Foulcher the only cast member actually filmed in LA. The continuity is so flawless that you can't tell.

Definitely see this one if you get the opportunity. While it's an Australian film, it's not self-consciously so. It's simply a very funny contemporary comedy that happens to be set in Melbourne.