Delayed Reaction: Dual

Premise: After a woman makes a miraculous medical recovery, she has to fight the clone she bought to replace her to the death.

 

I’m frustrated by the fact that I liked this movie. From the little I knew, it was probably the movie I was looking forward to the most for this year’s Sundance. I like Karen Gillan and a clone fight sounds fun. I was intrigued to learn the rules of this SciFi world. The reason I’m frustrated is because describing what I like about this film makes me sound like a hypocrite for not liking most of Yorgos Lanthimos’ films. You see, Dual is a very dry movie. The performances are almost robotic. Like the script was passed through Google Translate a couple times. The rules of the world have a similar “Just go with it” quality to The Lobster, which I really didn’t care for. So now I’m stuck untangling this inconsistency in my mind. I won’t examine that here. Just know that I am aware that my enjoyment of this is in opposition to my lack of enjoyment of Lanthimos movies.

 

Dual is a matter-of-fact movie. It has a very dry sense of humor. It took me a while to realize that was the style of the movie and not a setup for a revelation. This is maybe the one time I’m happy that Karen Gillan isn’t using her native accent. A Scottish Karen Gillan would be too fun for this movie. Her flat American accent matches the character more and makes some of her sillier lines funnier. For example, there’s an exchange early on between her and her doctor. The doctor says she’s absolutely going to die and that there’s a 98% mortality rate. Gillan questions the doctor about the 2%. Instead of Gillan being the audience surrogate, the scene is like listening to two machine that are programmed differently trying to communicate.

 

The movie uses comic shortcuts throughout, like cutting away from Gillan about to give a speech to afterwards her being told how good the speech was. It does lean a little too much on that in the world-building. Simply put, I don’t understand “Clone Law” in this. It’s funny in the sense that everyone just accepts the duals to the death as the best solution, but I want to know more about this clone alimony situation. There’s a difference between thinking it all out then making jokes about it and using jokes to cover up a lack of thought. That’s more of a minor quibble though. I mostly enjoyed this movie.

 

Side Thought: I’ve seen Karen Gillan fight in other movies. I know she’s tall and lean. She’s always felt athletic. This movie does a good job making her not seem like that. It’s the first time I’ve wondered if Karen Gillan could do a pushup. That’s an accomplishment.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend