Twinless

When Charlotte (Tasha Smith, "Couples Retreat") finds Dennis (writer/director James Sweeney, "Straight Up") looking into her grief therapy group for twins, she encourages him to join them. Roman (Dylan O'Brien, "The Maze Runner," "Saturday Night's" Dan Aykroyd and the winner of Sundance 2025's Dramatic Special Jury Award), who has recently lost his twin Rocky (also O'Brien), will find a friend in Dennis, but when he begins to date Dennis's coworker Marcie (Aisling Franciosi, "The Nightindale," "Speak No Evil"), he will find out that Dennis is a different kind of "Twinless."

Laura's Review: B

Sweeney has taken the romcom formula where a couple's third act obstacle is discovering that their relationship is based on a lie and squared it by involving a gay relationship and set of twins. After a prologue set at Rocky's graveside, where Roman is embraced by a stranger, followed by that therapy session where we learn Rocky was gay, Sweeney follows the film's title credits with a flashback which informs us that Dennis's burgeoning friendship with Roman is also based on a lie, as Rocky had been his lover. And there are more twists to come.

Roman has a volatile relationship with his mother, Lisa (Lauren Graham), and, missing the companionship of his twin, calls Dennis and asks if he'd like to accompany him grocery shopping. Dennis jumps at the chance yearning to be with the man who looks exactly like the one he loved, but this relationship will be quite different. When Roman asks him how to tell if a lemon is ripe, Dennis replies 'when it's yellow, otherwise they're green,' leading Dennis to laugh when Roman then thinks limes are unripe lemons. Roman is dejected by being laughed at, admitting that he's not 'the brightest tool in the shed,' asking Dennis to instead simply tell him when he's wrong. Dennis is empathetic, carefully taking the opportunity to tell Roman he meant 'sharpest.'

The friendship deepens, Roman confiding to Dennis that Rocky was his mother's favorite. In turn, Dennis tells Roman he feels responsible for Dean, his own twin's death, a bit of fiction we will learn is based on truth. 'You see me,' Roman tells Dennis and when Dennis accompanies him to a hockey game, when a group of guys fling a homosexual slur at them afterwards outside the arena, Roman demands an apology, then takes them all on physically.

The relationship becomes complicated when other aspects of Dennis's life begin to seep in, including George (Chris Perfetti of TV's 'Abbott Elementary' as George), the man Dennis had found Rocky with. We will see Dennis's prior rejection repeat itself, not only as Roman begins to spend more time with Marcie, but when the men Roman tries to fix Dennis up with, like Sammy (François Arnaud, "I Killed My Mother") fail to connect. When Marcie manages to connect the dots, Dennis is forced to confess, with predictable results given what Roman said earlier when George described what went down when Rocky was killed, but just when the film appears to be sliding into overt maudlin sentimentality, Sweeney and O'Brien manage to right the ship through the genuine humanity of their performances.

Sweeney employs a split screen during a pivotal party as Dennis flunks out with Roman's work friend Sammy while watching Roman spark with Marcie. Cinematographer Greg Cotten favors slow zooms on central framing. One amusing scene illustrates Marcie's explanation of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon as Dennis walks past a continual stream of twins on a Portland street.

Dylan O'Brien creates two distinct characters in the flamboyantly confident gay twin, Rocky, differentiated physically with the addition of a moustache, and the sweet but somewhat dim Roman, who takes out his feelings of abandonment with the flashpoints that pass for conversation with his mother. Sweeney has a more difficult character to navigate with his overly needy, jealous and deceptive Dennis, but the quiet intelligence he exudes helps make Dennis more palatable. Still, the filmmaker has created an almost insurmountable obstacle for this relationship, and one's individual capacity for forgiveness will be integral to how one views "Twinless."

Robin's Review: C+

Roadside Attractions releases "Twinless" in theaters on 9/5/25.