MIFF Session #10: DUAL

After a prologue showing a young man duelling his clone to death we meet young Sarah whose career and relationship are floundering. She eats junk food and drinks too much and now she's vomiting blood. Diagnosis cancer with 2% margin for error. Prognosis certain death within a year. But why doesn't she do what everyone else in her situation does and get a clone to train to be her for her loved ones afterwards? Um, didn't you say there was a margin for error? Forget it, you're dead, do this. So, she does.

The clone, known as Sarah's Double, is identical but for a mistake in the process that made her eyes blue, not brown like Sarah's. She emerges at Sarah's age, can speak but needs training in Sarah's life experience. What could go wrong? Well, her partner and mother like Sarah's double better and then Sarah finds out that she has gone into remission. The law states there can only be one so we're back to the prologue setup whereby the Sarahs will have to duel to the death.

Riley Stearns' satire begins with a premise in speculative fiction that, while not unknown, is not unfamiliar, what he adds is the training. Do I make my future self better or will I just create an intolerable rival while I'm still alive? So, should I make her a mediocrity who might improve herself after I'm gone. What does either say about me? As Sarah is training to kill her double (with the superbly cast Aaron Paul) she is driven by an anger from every unfair thing that has led her to this and channels it into Sarah's Double. 

Karen Gillan's performance is studiously deadpan, to the point of sounding robotic. This allows her clone to sound like her from the off but also means that differences between them need to be played subtly. That said, they have an exchange about how each speaks the name of their partner Peter. This serves the concept, the writing and the narrative but forms a block to our empathy which did bother me. This issue was handled by showing more of Sarah than her clone to keep the timeline focussed on her but it increasingly lost power when the pair shared the screen. It reminded me of the corporate ad for the cloning service which played a step too far for consistent satire. A similar moment in Being John Malkovich worked as if fit perfectly in with the whimsy of the whole film. This just feels ill-judged.

It is such choices that hamper this film from feeling as committed as it might be. Gillan seems to struggle to bring her flat voice character through to us. There are inconsistencies in the scheme that are left untended like the question of why the law has met the problem the way it has. A little work on the greater social response might have fixed this. Nevertheless, if you can buy into the premise, just keep your eye on Sarah's side of the story and you should enjoy this idea-driven tale.