User Reviews

But it still has its flaws. Overall though, I enjoyed it and I'm glad I watched. It's a long way away from being a waste of my time, of which other reviewers accuse it.

This isn't exactly a comedy, although it does put its characters in some inherently comedic situations and it did make me laugh in places, at least in the first half of the film.

Karen Gillan is right at the centre of this film, even more so because she played two characters. I thought she was good. Her muted performance was appropriate to the tone of the film. Those reviewers who criticise her performance might perhaps think about the director of the film, who as the writer too must have known exactly what he wanted and would surely have directed her differently if he were unhappy. At lot was resting on her performance and I found it hard to take my eyes off her. Job done.

Something that I found oddly jarring was KG's American accent. If it had been filmed in the US with Americans cast in all the smaller parts, then this would have been fine. But, given that a lot of the smaller parts were filled by European actors who didn't even attempt an American accent. Maybe Karen's Inverness accent would have been a step too far. I kinda think that if they decided that she couldn't speak in her native accent then an American accent was probably a better choice than her doing an English accent. But it's a shame that she couldn't be Scottish.

So, that ending ... hehe. I'm still not sure who I think the survivor is. And I've watched it twice. I've read arguments for both. First thing to say ... if the director had wanted it to be more clear, he could have done that. But instead we have some clues and some abiguity. I admit I felt a bit cheated by the ending the first time I watched it, but after a second watch I'm OK with it. I do have an opinion on which the survivor was, but I'll keep you in suspense a little longer ;-)

Sarah's water was poisoned. That's undeniable I think. The big "S" and "D" on the two water bottles, the fact that the double just sipped and watched Sarah drink to make sure she had enough. Peter and Sarah's mother were in on this plan. When the survivor turned up at the football field for the duel, they were sat where they could hear the survivor say she was Sarah. They smiled back at her. We know they wanted the double to survive. So the only way they would be happy was if they knew that it was the plan for the double to say she was Sarah.

So from that point on, it's either the double pretending to be Sarah or it's Sarah pretending to be the double pretending to be Sarah.

I think the key is the poisoning. Poison was mentioned in Sarah's training. Her reaction at the time was "I should have thought of that." But she was not at all suspicious when her double encouraged her to drink the poisoned water. I can read this two ways: First, maybe it's just a bit of foreshadowing for the audience ... the poison photo being in the training and Sarah's reaction is supposed to establish that it's a blind spot of hers, so that it's no surprise that she falls for it at the end. But then I can also think that it's supposed to show that Sarah is well aware that she is drinking poisoned water at the end and has some plan to thwart being poisoned. Other reviewers have said this is what they think. I want to believe it too, but, there is absolutely nothing in the rest of the film to support it so I don't. So, I think the double survived.

Ultimately though, I'm not sure it matters. Whichever of them it was that breaks down and cries on the roundabout at the end, it's tragic. Trapped in a life you don't like, pretending to be someone else. That's true for both of them. If it's Sarah, she's pretending to be the double to her husband and mother. And if it's the double, she's pretending to be Sarah to everyone other than her husband and mother. Pretty bleak whichever it is.

Something else to consider is Sarah's cracked phone, which the survivor has at the end. And the fact that Sarah's mother calls it. But that can be explained if the double takes Sarah's phone after Sarah drops dead from the poison and puts her SIM in it. It's just not conclusive one way or the other.

Anything else I might bring up is even more tenuous.

If you made it this far, thank you and congratulations!

This is a dark comedy in the absurdity category. Everyone delivers their lines with a deadpan delivery. Unfortunately, the stoic delivery also makes it slow. It has some good jokes like the dog that gets the arrow in the eye from across the street and the clone has constitutional rights and the original has to pay support? Lol.

Originally premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival in the U. S. Dramatic Competition selection.

Dual is directed by Riley Stearns and it is a story about in the near future, a woman named Sara hears that she is terminally ill. To save her family from the pain of losing her, she opts for a cloning procedure of herself and trains the clone to feel like her. However, Sara makes a miraculous recovery, which drives her to a new problem: in the society of the future, humans cannot exist for longer than the time limit of their clones. By law, Sara and her clone must eventually fight each other to the death. Stearns' previous movies haven't really impressed me as much but after watching this one, this may be my favorite of his work so far.

Starring Karen Gillan and Aaron Paul. The movie is overall really interesting and weird at the same time. The humor elements worked pretty well with the dry tone. All the performances were pretty good. Some may complain that the performance looked wooden but I feel like that was the point of the movie's weirdness it was trying to point out. The production design, camerawork and sound effects are really good throughout. Gillan is a good actress when she isn't in the Marvel movies or big budget type of productions. Paul is great as usual but it's weird not seeing him as Todd Chavez after being a big fan of Bojack Horseman lol. Also, Theo James was good in this movie even if he wasn't in a big role.

There are problems with the movie as some aspects of the narrative could be improved. The characters at times felt a little unreal given the situation they are in. Some reactions based on the character felt unnatural or kind of fake at times. The movie has been said it is also a satire but I never really got to understand what is the point of trying to say it is a satire. Because if it was a satire, it didn't really work out well. Like if there was no satire at all.

Overall, it is an interesting movie. A little predictable at times but I was still able to be engaged with this. It will cause people to be very mixed as there are a lot of answers that are left unknown or strange things that aren't explained properly. Leaves you thinking about it more.

Rating: B+

The premise was interesting, the follow through was not. The original had no personality what so ever, I swear she's an early robot prototype. The clone is like a kid trapped in an adult body. The real question isn't what will happen when they dual, but why isn't she suing the hospital for guaranteeing her death so she decided to clone herself only to find out she isn't dying and that 2% actually rolled up and now she faces a 50/50 chance of being murdered because of them. Why is it even a law that if two people exist they have to dual to the death? If someone has identical twins, do they have to dual to the death at adulthood too? Pretty silly if you ask me. This movie dragged on in a lot of parts, only the curiosity of who won in the end kept me going...I was even going to fast forward to the end but didn't want to miss anything exciting if it happened...and no I didn't miss anything at all. Time not well spent. As for the ending...complete let down. I wish I didn't watch this movie at all.

The first half of the movie I was thinking it was going to be one of the best films I had seen in a long time. Then suddenly it was the end and there were so many unanswered questions my rating dropped from a solid 10 to well not sure. I was very disappointed with the ending. Like the director thought ok originally I wanted a duel but lets just drop the duel and leave a million unanswered questions instead. Like what happened to the car? Clearly she didn't know how to drive any more which answers who she was in the end but the ending was so disappointing imo. Out of all the endings the director could have picked they decided ok now lets think of the worst way to end this film and lets go with that... It was the most cowardly way to end the film. Maybe that was the point? The coward wins? Ok I shouldn't give out any spoilers. It's worth watching for the first 1 hour and 30 minutes just be prepared to be utterly disappointed there isn't a further 30 minutes to wrap it up. I can also see how some people didn't like the emotionless acting. I really liked it. The whole time I was wondering whether she was autistic or not. I thought it was a great portrayal of someone who has autism so just like neurotypical people don't understand autistic people some people I can see might not understand or like how autistic people think. There are also some disturbing scenes akin to a horror movie. So if you are autistic and like horror I think you would really enjoy it but at the same time you will cringe at the ridiculous way the director chose to end it. It was a film, the director had no problem showing someone kill a dog but then decided a duel was too much? No, I did not like the ending one bit. I was really looking forward to the duel. I thought that was the point of the whole film but it just ended off on a bit of a sad depressing note. I did laugh quite a bit in the first hour, I loved the acting but the ending was too pathetic. She clearly had problems living with herself after what she did in the last 5 minutes which she already hinted she would but I am not surprised after what she did in the end which was the ultimate cowards way to end the duel.

I'm not surprised by the relatively low IMDb rating for this movie here on IMDb, a '5.8' at the time I write this review. For this viewer however, I found the concept of the film highly original and totally whack. I'm sure the folks at 'Black Mirror' would be proud. I think the average person watching the film tries to look at it as a serious picture when it's really not meant to be. The situations and dialog are intentionally absurd to the point of being hysterical. The high water mark for me was when Sarah (Karen Gillan) was advised by her attorney (Darren McStay) to hire a combat trainer for a forced duel against her clone, having overcome a ninety eight percent probability of dying. Much of the dialog in the story is couched in deadpan black humor; the back and forth between Sarah and her doctor regarding the unaccountable two percent was brilliantly scripted. I also got a big kick out of combat trainer Trent's (Aaron Paul) suggestion of an alternate method of paying for his services. Come on now, you all know where you thought that was going now, didn't you? When it turned out to be hip-hop lessons, I thought I'd fall off the couch! Look, I'm probably not going to be able to convince the haters of this movie to change their mind, but if you come at it from a different perspective, you might find the story creatively amusing. There's also the uniquely double entendre'd nature of the title, since the 'duals' of the story are destined to 'duel' for the right of survivorship.

P. S. For what it's worth, I believe it was the Sarah clone who killed Sarah in the woods by poisoning her with the tainted bottle of water; note the look on the clone's face when she suggests taking a second sip. Sarah's car appears dented up and winds up marooned in the traffic circle at the close of the picture because the Sarah clone didn't know how to drive, admitting that she mixed up the functioning of the steering wheel with the brake pedal. Topping things off, she screamed her frustration because she was now trapped into living Sarah's life, one which she sought to change upon meeting Peter (Beulah Koale) and Sarah's mother (Maija Paunio), but realizing now she couldn't do it.

The acting is wooden, the script is both badly written (everything is spelled out) and very silly. Even the whole concept makes no sense at all.

SPOILERS. Why can't a copy live? Twins do. Why would anyone make a copy knowing that this might happen? How do they make a clone in one hour that can speak English? Just from a spit? Is the language knowledge in the spit? If yes, why no other personal knowledge? I could go on and on. It makes no sense. END OF SPOILERS!

Then there's the editing. It cuts like a ping pong. The camera is always on the person talking with a little pause. It's the mistake most first time and amateur editors make.

Why did Aaron Paul act in this film? He must be a personal friend to the director. Sadly even he is bad in it. And here is a small spoiler. In one scene he takes a dancing lesson from the protagonist (played by Karen Gillan) but he is so much better at dancing than she is in the scene which makes no sense at all. Could they not find an actress who could dance better than Aaron Paul or did the director fall asleep and forget to ask Paul not to do his best?

I just don't understand how so little talent gets stars and finance for such a hopeless project. And what's even more amazing, this gets 72% on RottenTomatoes!