Dual

It's not for everyone, I'd admit.

If you enjoyed "the art of self defense", I think you would like this movie.

I think the title is clever, having a dual meaning.

I would like to meet writer/director Riley Stearns. His films have a very unique sense of humour about them and I would like to know if that's how he naturally is. They are very dry and quite dark. You never quite know if you're supposed to be laughing or not. I think most of the time you are.

The film begins with a very intriguing opening scene featuring a duel. At this point I was wondering if the title of the movie had been misspelled. It soon became apparent however that it had not. The film went in a very different direction to what I was expecting and I really enjoyed it.

This was a film where I had absolutely no idea how it was going to end. There were dozens of different conclusions it could have gone with. I really liked the one they picked. It was dark, thought-provoking and interesting. I really enjoyed 'Dual' and would recommend it. 8/10.

Dual has an intriguing (albeit not entirely original) concept with a lot of comic and dramatic potential.

But the film is stuck in tonal limbo, being neither really funny nor especially poignant.

Dual's setting is its greatest strength. Its world always feels a little off-kilter and subtly dystopian.

But the storytelling is simply not engaging.

The writing feels bland and lazy.

The actors look mostly bored.

Riley Stearns is an interesting filmmaker. His first (and best) film Faults struck the right balance between absurdity and realism.

Since then he's gone on to adopt a more Lanthimos-ish tone, which seems overly self-conscious and gimmicky.

While that may have worked in his previous film, The Art of Self Defense, it doesn't in Dual.

I hope he returns to his earlier style for the next one.

Imagine there's a clone, who's now living in your home, an almost perfect doppelganger, taken straight from the lab's hanger. It's a sympathetic swap, as your time has come to drop, all your family need to know, is you'll never let them go.

Though your clock continues ticking, while your feet are all still kicking, and the one who thinks they're you, has made an impressive debut. But the law has made a rule, to remove one in a duel, when your name is on the roster, you can fight your own imposter.

Not that original and with little reflective value.

This is NOT a mainstream movie by any stretch. It is brought to us by a young writer-director whose specialty is unusual, quirky stories. I was anxious to see it because it stars Karen Gillan, I am a big fan, I could watch and listen to her read a phone book and be entertained.

So the premise here is in a alternate universe a technology has been invented to clone people. And a fantastic thing about it is, you spit in a cup and an hour later you meet your clone, the same size and same apparent age as you. Of course you have to teach it about yourself, family, likes and dislikes, things like that. And guard your boyfriend.

Why would you want to? You get a disgnosis that you have a terminal illness, you don't want to deprive your family and friends your presence so you make a clone to replace you.

So for most of the movie Gillan is playing two characters with subtle differences, she does it well, often with just the slight expressions on her face, and with some different voicings. What happens if, against the odds, she doesn't die? There is a law, within a year the two of them will battle until only one remains.

Set on the US west coast but filmed in Finland, it is not a sci-fi movie as much as it examines human nature and the things that motivate us, either for good or for evil. Pretty good viewing.

My wife and I watched it at home on DVD from our public library. I enjoyed it more than she did. We were slightly puzzled at the end but the DVD "extra" featuring the director's commentary cleared up any doubts.