TWINLESS

Mary-Kate and Ashley, Cole and Dylan, Tia and Tamera - twins have been ruling pop culture for decades. Society is infatuated with them; maybe when you younger, you dreamt about having one, wishing 'The Parent Trap' would happen to you. Whatever your knowledge of twins, we all want to know more about that unique type of bond.

'Twinless' follows Roman (Dylan O'Brien, 'Saturday Night', 'Love and Monsters'), and Dennis (James Sweeney, 'Straight Up'), who have both recently lost their identical twin brothers. The two meet at a support group for twinless twins. The two bond as Roman lost his gay brother and Dennis lost his straight brother, but as the two spend more time together, Dennis' true intentions are revealed.

'Twinless' is an interesting beast of a film. It's one I recommend going into knowing as little as possible. On the surface, it appears to be a heartfelt film about the loss of a twin, but once it starts to show its true colours, it's one of the funniest black comedies of the year.

O'Brien and Sweeney eat up their roles. Sweeney also wrote and directed the film, doing well to balance some of the truly wild things that take place. It never loses sight of the core idea of being alone and wanting a human connection. There is a twist here that I don't want to reveal, but I want to give credit where credit is due. This spin could have derailed the film, especially with how early on it's revealed (particularly if you're going in blind like I did), and the film only continued to heighten itself from there on. In other films, this moment would have been at the film's third act, but here it really hooks you in and then continues to elevate its plot. I really give a lot of praise for not making this reveal the core driving force, and Sweeney moving this to the first act sucks you in even more to see where it's going to go. That leaves a lot of pressure on the film, and it not only keeps you caring, loving and relating to these characters, no matter how outlandish their actions are, but also keeping the focus on its core theme of feeling alone and wanting connection.

'Twinless' perfectly balances its heart with the wild plot leaps that the film takes you on, aided by grounded performances from both its leads. It's one of the year's most surprising films, both literally and with how much I both laughed and connected with it (even when its characters are doing outrageous things).