Sometimes life is so treacherous that we cannot trust even ourselves, as the beautiful protagonist of this 2022 movie, Dual, learns the hard way.
The girl starts her adventure in the worst possible shape, away from her family and boyfriend.
For several weeks she felt highly ill, waking up in the middle of the night with her sheets and pillow smeared with blood.
When she goes to the hospital for a checkup, things do not get any better. Indeed, doctors diagnose her with a rare and incurable disease, giving her at most one more year to live.
She does not let the trauma overwhelm her, trying to think clearly about what to do in the little time she has left.
At the doctors’ suggestion, to avoid making her loved ones suffer, she then creates a clone that will continue to live in her place.
During her last year of life, she will instruct her double on all her habits so that her new version will be comfortable with the world ahead.
However, the boyfriend and mother welcome the clone much better than expected. Even, they prefer her cheerfulness to the original girl’s grumpy personality.
Then again, fate has a further twist in store. Indeed, the terrible disease regresses and disappears completely, so she no longer has to die.
Her clone, however, has no intention of losing the life she is now accustomed to, refusing to die to make way for the other.
In these rare cases, the law provides that a mortal duel takes place between the two genetically equal individuals.
Both girls begin to train in combat, waiting for the fateful day when one must inevitably kill the other.
An uncommonly anti-commercial and authorial sci-fi movie
Considering how Riley Stearns writes and directs Dual, it will inevitably divide 2022 audiences accustomed to other movies.
The director opts for an erratic narrative pace, often betraying by surprise the twists and turns that seem legitimate to expect from the premise.
This narrative line is not a mistake. Quite the opposite, it is a deliberate choice to atypically tell a typical sci-fi story that already existed before.
Indeed, cloning is undoubtedly not new in film history, going from famous movies like Jurassic Park to more obscure ones like Zardoz.
Many action stars, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger in the hilarious The 6th Day, have tackled the subject.
Better yet, now that I remember, Jean-Claude Van Damme has played several of them. Nothing disappointing, they were indeed very engaging action like Replicant or the Universal Soldier movie series.
Today, however, we are talking about a different kind of narrative. In this hypothetical future, cloning is nothing new and part of everyday life.
As a result, the narrative treats the topic with almost the same ordinary banality. Not surprisingly, doctors speak of death and killing to their patients as a routine.
By no means expect heart-pounding action scenes (except for the excellent opening sequence) or over-the-top thriller twists.
The story maintains an apparent seriousness and consistency from beginning to end. Still, the director uses a lot of black ironies, especially in the development of relationships between the characters.
In conclusion, Dual is an uncommercial film of 2022. The result is an emotional and psychological dance between characters, perhaps disappointing for those who always expect over-the-top emotions.
Instead, it lives more from what it does not say in the dialogues and what it does not show in the various scenes, rather than what we see and feel explicit.
More controlled acting for greater emotion
By Riley Stearns, I had already enjoyed the earlier and recommended The Art of Self-Defense, starring the excellent Jesse Eisenberg.
A peculiarity of this writer-director is to have his actors perform in a seemingly dim and understated manner.
Yet, from this low emotional volume come excellent performances such as that of the beautiful and talented Karen Gillan.
The actress begins her almost robotic role with a protagonist who seems practically depressed and not very emotionally open.
After cloning, she doubles as a girl who is instead curious about everything around her, seemingly happy and untroubled.
Regarding the original, however, having overcome her illness, she regains some passion for life, especially when she is in danger of losing it.
At that point, she begins training with a cheap instructor, as half of her money goes to the clone’s livelihood.
This is when Aaron Paul enters the scene and confronts her with the harsh reality that she will have to fight to kill.
I really liked this character, who is strong and believable. Unfortunately, he seems to disappear toward the end, whereas I think he would have deserved at least a concluding scene.
On the other hand, perfect is the naively wicked Beulah Koale and Maija Paunio, the protagonist’s boyfriend and mother, respectively.
These unhesitatingly forsake her in favor of the clone, not hesitating to help to kill her.
From the beginning, I understood that Dual was a very peculiar and atypical movie in the cinematic landscape of 2022.
However, I can only recommend it to those who like unusual, introverted stories and characters who are more to understand than to listen to directly.
