Karen Gillan faces off against Karen Gillan in the latest film from 'Faults' and 'The Art of Self-Defense director Riley Stearns.
Set in the near future, Riley Stearns’ third feature Dual follows Sarah , a woman who emanates loneliness. She seems annoyed when her boyfriend tries to call her while on a trip for work, and she even has nightmares of having to eat alone with her mother. When she wakes up one morning with her sheets covered in blood, it barely registers, just another thing that Sarah now has to deal with.
But from this defeatist world, Stearns has crafted a darkly funny film, which almost feels Yorgos Lanthimos-ian, with it’s intentionally awkward and wooden characters marching their way through another day. This is most apparent through Gillan in dual roles. As the original Sarah, she acts as if she’s constantly under a raincloud. When she’s told that she’s dying, she seems even more shocked that she isn’t crying about the revelation.
Stearns’ screenplay almost always zigs where the audience is expecting it to zag. Sarah’s recovery is only the first of many misdirections, as Stearns frequently pulls the rug out from under his audience. Quite often, these shifts in expectations lead to some of the funniest moments in the film, such as surprises in Sarah and Trent’s training, and the new Sarah’s confusion about driving.
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